February 4, 2026
From the Office of Governor Mike DeWine

Governor DeWine is issuing the following reprieves of execution 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.

Gerald Hand

Scheduled to be executed: June 17, 2026.
New date of execution: April 18, 2029.

According to Ohio Supreme Court documents, Gerald Hand had accumulated approximately $200,000 in credit card debt. Prosecutors said that on Jan. 15, 2002, he decided to collect a $1 million life insurance policy on his 58-year-old wife, Jill, by hiring his longtime friend, Walter “Lonnie” Welch, to kill her.

Jill was Hand’s third wife. On March 24, 1976, his first wife, Donna, 28, was found strangled in the basement of their Columbus home. On Sept. 9, 1979, his second wife, Lori, 21, was found strangled in the same basement. Neither homicide was solved at the time; however, Welch later told others that Hand had paid him to kill both women. On Jan. 12, 2002, Hand shot and killed both Jill and Welch.

Danny Lee Hill

Scheduled to be executed: July 22, 2026.
New date of execution: July 18, 2029.

Per documents from the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office, Danny Lee Hill and his friend Timothy Combs kidnapped 12-year-old Raymond Fife who was riding his bike to meet his friend on the southwest side of Warren.

When Raymond did not show at his friend’s house, Raymond’s father went looking and found him in the woods behind a grocery store. The boy had been beaten, raped and set on fire. He succumbed two days later to his injuries. Hill was 18 at the time and sentenced to death, Combs was 17 and sentenced to life in prison.

Cleveland R. Jackson

Scheduled to be executed: July 15, 2026.
New date of execution: June 13, 2029

Per the Ohio Court of Appeals, on Jan. 3, 2000, Cleveland R. Jackson and his brother, Jeronique Cunningham, robbed the Lima apartment of Shane Liles. The men forced Liles into the kitchen at gunpoint along with several teenagers who had been playing video games in the living room and a 3-year-old girl, Jala Grant.

After Liles told the brothers he had nothing left for them to take, Jackson and Cunningham opened fire on the group, shooting each person at least once and stopping only after they ran out of ammunition. Grant and 17-year-old Leneshia Williams were killed.

Jackson and Cunningham were convicted of the murders of Williams and Grant, as well as aggravated robbery and the attempted murder of the five surviving victims.