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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine delays execution of man who killed Cleveland police officer

Quisi Bryan was scheduled to be executed on Oct. 26, 2022.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Editor's note: the video in the player above is from a previous story.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has issued a reprieve for a man who was set to be executed this fall after being found guilty of killing Cleveland police officer Wayne Leon.

Quisi Bryan was set to be executed on October 26, 2022. He was previously found guilty of fatally shooting Leon at a Cleveland gas station in a crime that occurred on June 25, 2000.

But one day before the 22-year anniversary of the homicide, DeWine announced that Bryan's execution has been delayed until Jan. 7, 2026.  According to DeWine, the delay comes as a result of "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."

In 2015, a federal judge overturned Bryan's convictions after concluding that prosecutors had improperly sought to remove a prospective juror because the juror was Black. A federal appeals court reversed that decision in December of 2016 and reinstated his convictions, with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to hear Bryan's request for a review in 2017.

In 2007, Bryan was sentenced to 48 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple sexual assaults that occurred prior to the 2000 killing of Leon. In 2017, he was resentenced to 22 years in prison for the assaults after it was found that five judges wrongly applied sentences to the law at the time the crime occurred.

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