LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s capital punishment system
is likely to face new challenges following an unusually long execution
in which the condemned man appeared to gasp several times.
Family
members of death row inmate Dennis McGuire planned a Friday news
conference to announce a lawsuit over McGuire’s death, which they are
calling unconstitutional. And it’s almost certain lawyers will use
McGuire’s Thursday execution to challenge Ohio’s plans to put a
condemned Cleveland-area killer to death next month.
"All citizens
have a right to expect that they will not be treated or punished in a
cruel and unusual way," defense attorney Jon Paul Rion, representing
McGuire’s adult children, said Thursday. "Today’s actions violated that
constitutional expectation."
McGuire’s attorney Allen Bohnert
called the convicted killer’s death "a failed, agonizing experiment" and
added: "The people of the state of Ohio should be appalled at what was
done here today in their names."
McGuire’s lawyers had attempted
last week to block his execution, arguing that the untried method could
lead to a medical phenomenon known as "air hunger" and could cause him
to suffer "agony and terror" while struggling to catch his breath.
A
few minutes before McGuire was put to death, Ohio prison director Gary
Mohr said he believed the state’s planning would produce "a humane,
dignified execution" consistent with the law.
McGuire, 53, made
loud snorting noises during one of the longest executions since Ohio
resumed capital punishment in 1999. Nearly 25 minutes passed between the
time the lethal drugs began flowing and McGuire was pronounced dead at
10:53 a.m.
Executions under the old method were typically much shorter and did not cause the kind of sounds McGuire
made.
Ohio prisons spokeswoman JoEllen Smith had no comment on how the execution went but said a review will be
conducted as usual.
Prison
officials gave intravenous doses of two drugs, the sedative midazolam
and the painkiller hydromorphone, to put McGuire to death for the 1989
rape and fatal stabbing of a pregnant newlywed, Joy Stewart.
The
method was adopted after supplies of a previously used drug dried up
because the manufacturer declared it off limits for capital punishment.
McGuire’s
attorney called on Republican Gov. John Kasich to impose a moratorium
on future executions, as did a state death penalty opponent group.
The
move will likely echo across the country as other states contemplate
new drug methods, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death
Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.
"Judges
will now realize that the warnings being raised about these untried
procedures are not just false alarms," he said in an email. "States will
now have more of a burden to show that they are using a well thought
out best practice. "
What was particularly unusual Thursday was
the five minutes or so that McGuire lay motionless on the gurney after
the drugs began flowing, followed by a sudden snort and then more than
10 minutes of irregular breathing and gasping. Normally, movement comes
at the beginning and is followed by inactivity.
"Oh, my God," his daughter, Amber McGuire, said as she watched his final moments.
In
pressing for the execution to go ahead, state Assistant Attorney
General Thomas Madden had argued that while the U.S. Constitution bans
cruel and unusual punishment, "you’re not entitled to a pain-free
execution."
U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost sided with the
state. But at the request of McGuire’s lawyers, he ordered officials to
photograph and preserve the drug vials, packaging and syringes.
McGuire,
strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, thanked Stewart’s family
members, who witnessed the execution, for their "kind words" in a letter
he apparently received from them.
"I’m going to heaven. I’ll see you there when you come," he said.
Stewart’s
slaying went unsolved for 10 months until McGuire, jailed on an
unrelated assault and hoping to improve his legal situation, told
investigators he had information about the death. His attempts to pin
the crime on his brother-in-law quickly unraveled, and he was accused of
the killing.
More than a decade later, DNA evidence confirmed
McGuire’s guilt, and he acknowledged his responsibility in a letter to
Kasich last month.
The death row inmate’s lawyers argued McGuire
was mentally, physically and sexually abused as a child and had impaired
brain function that made him prone to act impulsively.
"We have
forgiven him, but that does not negate the need for him to pay for his
actions," Stewart’s family said in a statement after the execution.
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Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus
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