Kareem Jackson Receives Fourth Execution Reprieve in Ohio, Execution Date Re-Set for 2025

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has issued a reprieve to death-row prisoner Kareem Jackson, calling off his scheduled September 15, 2022 execution and setting a new December 10, 2025 execution date. In a news release, the governor’s office said that the reprieve had been issued “due to ongoing problems involving the willingness of pharmaceutical suppliers to provide drugs to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC), pursuant to DRC protocol, without endangering other Ohioans.”

Pharmaceutical companies have told DeWine that they will not sell their medicines to the state for use in executions and that if the state diverts drugs sold for therapeutic use to carry out executions, they may stop selling their medicines to the state. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that such an action could “endanger the ability of thousands of Ohioans — such as Medicaid recipients, state troopers, and prison inmates — to get drugs through state programs.”

Jackson was convicted of two murders and sentenced to death in 1997. This is the fourth time Governor DeWine has issued a reprieve of Jackson’s execution and the eighth reprieve of an Ohio execution scheduled for 2022. On March 7, 2019, DeWine halted Jackson’s execution, then scheduled for July 10, 2019, and rescheduled it for January 16, 2020. He issued a second reprieve on October 30, 2019, rescheduling Jackson’s execution for September 16, 2020. That execution was halted on June 5, 2020 and rescheduled for September 15, 2022.