4th execution reprieve granted for death row inmate who killed Warren County cellmate

Hanna was sentenced to die in 1998 after he was convicted of killing his cellmate, 43-year-old Peter Copas, at the Lebanon Correctional Institution.

Copas died almost three weeks after Hanna stabbed him in the eye with a sharpened paintbrush and bludgeoned him with a sock with a padlock in it at the prison in 1997.

Hanna was serving a life sentenced for the stabbing death of a Toledo convenience store clerk in 1977.

Prosecutors said that Hanna bragged of killing Copas in a letter to another inmate.

Hanna has previously been granted reprieves in November 2019, April 2020 and September 2021.

DeWine also issued reprieves on Friday for Stanley Adams, who was scheduled to be executed Feb. 19, 2025 and has a new date of Feb. 16, 2028; as well as John Drummond, who was scheduled to be executed April 16, 2025, and is now scheduled for March 15, 2028.

The governor’s office said that the reprieves were issued because pharmaceutical suppliers have been unwilling to provide the drugs used in the executions to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.