COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The state made preparations on
Wednesday to use a never-tried lethal drug combination to put a man to
death for the slaying of a pregnant woman that went unsolved until he
inadvertently helped authorities, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to
block the execution.
Dennis McGuire, jailed on an unrelated
assault charge, told investigators he had information about the woman’s
Feb. 12, 1989, death. His attempts to blame the crime on his
brother-in-law quickly unraveled, and soon he was accused of being Joy
Stewart’s killer, prosecutors said. More than a decade later, DNA
evidence confirmed McGuire’s guilt, and he acknowledged that he was
responsible in a letter to Gov. John Kasich last month.
The state
planned to execute McGuire on Thursday with a new process adopted after
supplies of its previous drug dried up when the manufacturer put it off
limits for capital punishment. The two-drug combination has never been
used in a U.S. execution.
The state opposed McGuire’s last-minute
appeal, in which he claimed a jury never heard the full extent of his
chaotic and abusive childhood.
"One can scarcely conceive of a
sequence of crimes more shocking to the conscience or to moral
sensibilities than the senseless kidnapping and rape of a young,
pregnant woman followed by her murder," Preble County prosecutors said
in a filing with the state parole board last month.
McGuire, 53,
was moved from death row in Chillicothe on Wednesday morning to the
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, where executions are
carried out. He was calm and cooperative and requested a last meal that
included roast beef and fried chicken, prisons spokeswoman JoEllen Smith
said.
McGuire spent part of Wednesday visiting with his son, daughter and other family members, Smith said.
His
attorneys argue he was mentally, physically and sexually abused as a
child and has impaired brain function that makes him prone to act
impulsively.
"Dennis was at risk from the moment he was born," the
lawyers said in a parole board filing. "The lack of proper nutrition,
chaotic home environment, abuse, lack of positive supervision and lack
of positive role models all affected Dennis’ brain development."
The U.S. Supreme Court gave no explanation in rejecting McGuire’s appeal and denying a stay of execution.

The state says similar challenges have failed several times over the decades since Stewart’s death.
Documents
obtained by The Associated Press show McGuire unsuccessfully sought a
reprieve in recent weeks to try to become an organ donor. In November,
Kasich, a Republican, granted a death row inmate an eight-month reprieve
to let the prison system study his request to donate a kidney to his
sister and his heart to his mother. Kasich said McGuire couldn’t
identify a family member who would receive his organs, as required under
prison policy.
Ohio officials planned to use intravenous doses of
two drugs, the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone, to
put McGuire to death. The method has been on the books as the backup
method since 2009 but never had to be used.
McGuire’s attorneys
say he is at substantial risk of a medical phenomenon known as air
hunger, which will cause him to experience terror as he strains to catch
his breath.
The state presented evidence disputing the air hunger
scenario and saying McGuire waited far too long to file the appeal,
which came this month.
A federal judge sided with the state and
said the execution can proceed. At the request of McGuire’s lawyers,
Judge Gregory Frost on Wednesday ordered the state to photograph and
then preserve the drugs’ packaging boxes and vials and the syringes used
in the execution.
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Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.
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