Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issues three death penalty reprieves

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued execution reprieves for three death row inmates on Friday.

In a statement, DeWine said he issued reprieves for Keith LaMar, Scott Group, and Davel Chinn, all of whom were set to be executed early next year.

LaMar was scheduled to be executed on Jan. 13, 2027. He was convicted of aggravated murder for the deaths of five inmates during a 1993 riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville. He received the death penalty for four of the killings. His new execution date is Jan. 13, 2030. Watch the latest NBC4 headlines in the video player above.

Group was scheduled to be executed on Feb. 13, 2027. Authorities said Group was a delivery man to the Downtown Bar in Youngstown when, on Jan. 18, 1997, he forced bar owners Robert and Sandra Lozier into the bar restroom and shot both of them in the head; Group then stole more than $1,200 in cash, court documents said. He is now scheduled to be executed on Feb. 13, 2030.

Chinn was scheduled to be executed on March 18, 2027. Court records state that on Jan. 30, 1989, in Montgomery County, Ohio, Chinn and an accomplice kidnapped Brian Jones in a robbery attempt. Chinn then shot and killed Jones because, according to Chinn, Jones “didn’t have enough money.” His new execution date is scheduled for March 13, 2030.

DeWine has not authorized an execution since he took office in 2019, citing “ongoing problems” with the state being able to buy the drugs necessary to carry out lethal injection.

“Governor DeWine is issuing these reprieves 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,” the governor wrote in a statement.

DeWine previously postponed the executions of all three earlier in his tenure as governor.

The reprieves come amid a growing sentiment at the Ohio Statehouse to abolish the death penalty, with DeWine renewing that call less than two months ago. He has issued more than 40 reprieves in his eight years as governor.

This is the second time in 2026 that DeWine has issued execution reprieves. In May, he also commuted the death sentence of Gregory Lott to life in prison without the possibility of parole; it was DeWine’s first commutation of a death penalty sentence as governor.

Source: nbc4i.com, Daniel Griffin, August 7, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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