Lawyers for capital murder defendant Darnell Jones have moved to have the death-penalty specifications in his case dismissed, arguing that the death penalty represents cruel and unusual punishment and Ohio’s selection of capital cases is arbitrary.
The death-penalty specifications “violate provisions of the United States and Ohio Constitutions and violate international law to which Ohio is bound,” lawyers David Klucas, Ann Baronas, and Morgan Isenberg stated in the motion now before Judge Michael Goulding in Lucas County Common Pleas Court.
More specifically, the lawyers wrote, the availability of a life sentence without parole in Ohio “provides adequate protection to the public and punishment of the offender,” while entrusting to prosecutors the selection of capital cases treats “similarly situated defendants differently for unknown reasons.”…