Georgia Supreme Court, Ohio Governor Provisionally Halt Three Executions

Three U.S. exe­cu­tions were halt­ed on October 30, 2019, as the Georgia Supreme Court issued a day-of-exe­cu­tion stay to Ray Jefferson Cromartie and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (pic­tured) grant­ed war­rants of reprieve to the next two death-row pris­on­ers sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Ohio. The actions capped a tumul­tuous October in which nine of ten sched­uled exe­cu­tions did not take place and fed­er­al courts stayed two oth­er exe­cu­tions set for lat­er in the year. 

Shortly after noon on October 30, the Georgia Supreme Court pro­vi­sion­al­ly called off Cromartie’s exe­cu­tion to con­sid­er impro­pri­eties in the issuance of the death war­rant. The court’s stay order said that ​“it appears that the pend­ing exe­cu­tion order may be void” because it was issued by the tri­al court at a time in which Cromartie’s appeal of an anoth­er order deny­ing him DNA test­ing was pend­ing before the state’s high court and the tri­al court lacked juris­dic­tion to take any action in the case. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution report­ed that the Georgia Attorney General’s office has con­ced­ed that the death war­rant was void and that it would ​“imme­di­ate­ly” seek a new exe­cu­tion date. Cromartie’s coun­sel, assis­tant fed­er­al defend­er Shawn Nolan, issued a state­ment that, while the court stayed Cromartie’s exe­cu­tion ​“on a juris­dic­tion­al ques­tion, we remain hope­ful that the courts will ensure that DNA test­ing is com­plet­ed in [his] case before an exe­cu­tion is car­ried out.” Nolan said that DNA test­ing could prove Cromartie’s inno­cence of cap­i­tal mur­der and not­ed that “[t]he victim’s daugh­ter has repeat­ed­ly asked Georgia state offi­cials to con­duct the DNA test­ing before pro­ceed­ing with an exe­cu­tion.” The pub­lic, he said, ​“has a strong inter­est in allow­ing DNA test­ing because the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent per­son would be the gravest mis­car­riage of justice.” 

Later in the day, Gov. DeWine issued exe­cu­tion reprieves to James Hanna and Kareem Jackson, the next two pris­on­ers sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Ohio. DeWine halt­ed Hanna’s sched­uled December 11, 2019 exe­cu­tion, set­ting a new exe­cu­tion date of July 16, 2020. His war­rant of reprieve for Jackson post­poned his sched­uled January 16, 2020 to September 16, 2020. The post­pone­ments mean that none of the death war­rants sched­ul­ing 18 exe­cu­tion dates in Ohio in 2019 will be carried out. 

DeWine’s action was expect­ed, as a result of the state’s ongo­ing dif­fi­cul­ty in obtain­ing suit­able lethal-injec­tion drugs. On Friday, October 25, DeWine told reporters that it was ​“high­ly unlike­ly” the state would exe­cute Hanna on December 11. At that time, DeWine restat­ed his con­cern that Ohio can­not obtain drugs to car­ry out exe­cu­tions with­out putting pub­lic health at risk, say­ing that the pos­si­bil­i­ty that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers would stop sell­ing med­i­cines to any state agency if they sus­pect Ohio would divert drugs intend­ed for ther­a­peu­tic pur­pos­es to use in exe­cu­tions had placed the state ​“in a very difficult situation.” 

DeWine’s announce­ment was the cul­mi­na­tion of a long series of death-penal­ty relat­ed devel­op­ments in Ohio in 2019. In January, fed­er­al mag­is­trate Judge Michael Merz issued an opin­ion say­ing that exe­cu­tions under Ohio’s cur­rent drug pro­to­col ​“will almost cer­tain­ly sub­ject [pris­on­ers] to severe pain and need­less suf­fer­ing.” In response to that rul­ing, DeWine halt­ed all exe­cu­tions in the state until the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction devel­oped a new court-approved exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. ​“Ohio is not going to exe­cute some­one under my watch when a fed­er­al judge has found it to be cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment,” he said then. In August, DeWine post­poned the exe­cu­tion of Warren Henness because the state could not pro­cure lethal-injec­tion drugs. In October, DeWine grant­ed a reprieve to Cleveland Jackson and delayed his exe­cu­tion date from November 13, 2019 to January 13, 2021, because of a mis­con­duct com­plaint filed against Jackson’s pre­vi­ous appellate attorneys. 

Hanna’s lawyer, assis­tant fed­er­al defend­er David Stebbins, praised Gov. DeWine for his ​“thought­ful and seri­ous approach to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” In a state­ment released after the reprieve, Stebbins cau­tioned that Ohio has sched­uled more than two dozen exe­cu­tions from 2020 through 2024, but expressed ​“confiden[ce] that Governor DeWine will main­tain his com­mit­ment to not resume exe­cu­tions until the state finds a method that does not inflict the unde­ni­able pain caused by the cur­rent [exe­cu­tion] protocol.”