COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Initial reviews of Ohio’s
lengthiest execution during which an inmate repeatedly gasped found no
reason to change the way the state puts condemned prisoners to death.
The
reviews, required by Ohio’s prison rules, found that the state’s
execution policy was followed and the execution and medical team members
did what they were supposed to.
The findings are important
because the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction is under strict
instructions from a federal judge to stick to its written policies, last
updated in October.
Ohio also is planning a longer review of
Dennis McGuire’s Jan. 16 execution looking more closely at what happened
during the procedure.
McGuire’s 26-minute execution was the
longest since Ohio resumed putting inmates to death in 1999. His family
is suing, saying it was cruel and inhumane.
"I find no reason for
revision of policy for future executions," Joseph Andrews, an
independent reviewer of the execution, said in a Jan. 27 memo.
"The
process worked very well," Donald Morgan, warden of the Southern Ohio
Correctional Facility, where Ohio’s death chamber is located, said in
his report.
McGuire was executed for the 1989 rape and stabbing death of Joy Stewart, 22, a recently married pregnant
woman in western Ohio.
The results of the reviews were first reported by The Dayton Daily News.
Lawyers
representing Gregory Lott, scheduled to die March 19 for a 1986 arson
death, are suing to stop that execution based on what happened to
McGuire.
McGuire, 53, made repeated snorting sounds and opened and
shut his mouth several times during his execution by a never-tried drug
combo. He appeared to be unconscious during that time.
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Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.
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