News Brief — New Set of Reprieves Push Back First Three Ohio Executions of 2021 Until 2023

NEWS (9/​4/​20) — Ohio: Citing an unwill­ing­ness to endan­ger pub­lic health, Governor Mike DeWine has issued a new set of reprieves that will push back the first three exe­cu­tions sched­uled in Ohio for 2021 until at least 2023. In a news release, the Governor’s office said he issued the reprieves ​“due to ongo­ing prob­lems involv­ing the will­ing­ness of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­pli­ers to pro­vide drugs to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction … with­out endan­ger­ing oth­er Ohioans.” DeWine pre­vi­ous­ly said that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies had threat­ened to stop sell­ing drugs to the state for med­ical use if Ohio divert­ed the med­i­cines to the prison sys­tem for use in executions.

Gov. DeWine resched­uled the January 13, 2021 exe­cu­tion of Cleveland Jackson for June 15, 2023; moved James O’Neal sched­uled exe­cu­tion from February 18, 2021 to August 16, 2023; and reset the exe­cu­tion of Melvin Bonnell from March 18, 2021 to October 18, 2023. DeWine and his pre­de­ces­sor, for­mer Governor John Kasich, grant­ed reprieves of 14 exe­cu­tions that had been sched­uled for 2020. Ohio courts have stayed two legal­ly pre­ma­ture exe­cu­tion dates in 2020 to per­mit death-row pris­on­ers to pur­sue their appeals and four oth­er 2020 Ohio exe­cu­tion dates have been withdrawn.