This a story that’s sure to give the most bloodthirsty fans of law and order a hard on. As many people know there has been a shortage of the chemicals used in lethal injection. The that has been frantically looking for an alternative poison to inject into those it deems worth of death. An initial trial was run using a new concoction on a Ohio man condemned to death. Needless to say, things didn’t go well:
LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) — A condemned man appeared to gasp several times and took an unusually long time to die — more than 20 minutes — in an execution carried out Thursday with a combination of drugs never before tried in the U.S.
Dennis 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.”
An attorney for McGuire’s family said it plans to sue the state over what happened.
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.
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.
I oppose the death penalty but if a state is going to implement it then it should have the decency to offer a quick death. Unfortunately our society has a rather strange belief that death by convoluted method is morally superior than death by sudden violence. That means many of the ways you could quickly kill a man, such as a bullet to the brain, are off of the table. Instead our society demands the use of complex chemicals that most of them cannot even pronounce the names of. It’s beyond me how lethal injection is morally superior to a firing squad but nobody is asking me. If they were there wouldn’t be a death penalty, or prisons for that matter.