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.