Ohio Execution: New Drug Combo Took 24 Minutes to Kill

By Jeralyn, Section Death Penalty
Posted on Thu Jan 16, 2014 at 09:35:22 PM EST
Tags: lethal injection (all tags)

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Ohio's experiment with a new execution cocktail didn't go very well:

Dennis McGuire struggled, repeatedly gasping loudly for air and making snorting and choking sounds, before succumbing to a new two-drug execution method today.

The 24-minute execution process was a “failed, agonizing experiment by the state of Ohio,” said one of the killer’s attorneys, Allen Bohnert, a federal public defender. “The people of the state of Ohio should be appalled by what was done in their name.”

Shorter version: You wouldn't do a dog this way. More here. In 2007, Amnesty International released a report on botched U.S. executions.

This is not Ohio's first botched execution. [More...]

In 2007, it took the state two hours and ten tries to kill Christopher Newton. Nor is Ohio the only state. In 2006, Florida botched the execution of Angel Nieves Diaz. It lasted 34 minutes, prompting then Gov. Jeb Bush to halt all executions in the state.

What's the answer? Life without parole, for one. It's certainly not experimenting new drug cocktails on humans.

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Ohio Execution: New Drug Combo Took 24 Minutes to Kill | 50 comments (50 topical)

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Simply barbaric. (5.00 / 5) (#1)
by desertswine on Thu Jan 16, 2014 at 09:43:46 PM EST

What a country (5.00 / 2) (#2)
by koshembos on Thu Jan 16, 2014 at 11:38:17 PM EST

Health care is expensive, death is free.

: Death (none / 0) (#46)
by Mikado Cat on Sat Jan 18, 2014 at 08:57:17 AM EST

penalty cases are hardly free, it costs a ton of money carry out a death sentence in most states. Cost alone is a good argument to stop executions.
The catch is that death is still currently our harshest punishment, so if it has any deterrent effect on the most heinous of crimes many are reluctant to eliminate it.

As barbaric (5.00 / 3) (#3)
by lentinel on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 08:32:21 AM EST

as it was, it seems to me that the guillotine was more humane. Zonk and it's over.

Even the "headsman" of Merrie Olde England seemed to have more skill than these freaks with their chemical cocktails.

Three Things... (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by ScottW714 on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 09:20:41 AM EST

...why can't they use the drug the veterinarian uses. Twice I have had to put a dog down and as painful as it was, they didn't suffer at all, simply faded away. What I think is so weird is you can tell the exact moment in which they leave, something in the eyes just disappears.

My second point may be related. I believe theses states are having to changed their cocktails because the chemical supplies have threatened to stop exporting to the US because they don't want their drug(s) being used to terminated human life. That in itself should be a huge red flag, groups whose only purpose is to generate profits are refusing to sell their product on moral grounds that doesn't happen often.

Not sure if that is the drug Vets use, I don't think so for the fact that drug combo was always questionable about suffering, but I am not positive. Plus the vet uses one chemical I believe, no cocktails.

And lastly, this conversation is just plain creepy. How the US demands that when we terminate a life there must be no suffering, as if the suffering is somehow more important then the actual taking of life. Or that as barbaric as taking a life is, we must ensure it's done in a non-barbaric way. That has never set right with me. Even the most devoted pro-death penalty people agree with limited suffering, just seems so weird.

I will never understand how taking a life painlessly is socially acceptable yet taking a life with say a minute of suffering is reprehensible. To me taking the life is infinitely worse than the suffering that may or may not accompany it. Yet many people are comfortable taking a life so long as their isn't suffering.

I'll never get over the fact (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by jondee on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 10:32:37 AM EST

that -- and I generalize only slightly -- the people most likely to believe in Hell seem to be the ones most likely to have very little problem with tormenting and torturing condemned prisoners. "Hale, the good Lord does it, why caint we?"


My vet uses phenobarbitol. (5.00 / 2) (#6)
by Mr Natural on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 10:35:50 AM EST

Old fashioned but brutally quick.

I've had to make a few of those vet visits. They suck on every level. It's always too late and it's always too soon.


: Too late and too soon (5.00 / 1) (#23)
by MKS on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 12:46:09 PM EST

So very true.....terrible thing....Terrible unfairness of life that the life expectancy of our friends is so low.

: May actually be pentobarbital (none / 0) (#8)
by Mr Natural on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 10:46:20 AM EST

according to wikipedia.
The only manufacturer of an injectable form of Pentobarbital apparently refuses to sell it to prisons, which being the founts of stupidity they are, are too stupid to figure out a way around that.

I'm one of those bleeding-hearts who (5.00 / 4) (#12)
by Anne on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 10:51:55 AM EST

is opposed to the death penalty, even in cases of the most heinous of crimes. For one thing, there are too many instances where it turns out the person convicted is not the person responsible for the crime. If you execute that person, there's no bringing him or her back.

For another, if what you are looking to do is punish someone, you could argue that confining that person to a prison cell for life or some other lengthy period of time is infinitely more punitive than giving them the needle.

Third, it makes no sense to me that we choose to kill people for killing other people; if killing is wrong, it should be wrong for the state, too.

And I can already hear the anti-choice crowd asking how I can make the distinction between a fetus and a grown person, but in my opinion, there is a distinction and it's really not that hard to see it. If I have to, I'll expand those thoughts, but for now, suffice it to say I've considered that dilemma and resolved it in my own mind. I haven't, however, been able to resolve the notion that aborting a life not yet actualized is wrong, but taking the life of a real, live person is okay, as long as we judge the soon-to-be-dead person as not worthy of living.


I Totally Agree... (5.00 / 1) (#22)
by ScottW714 on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 12:40:08 PM EST

...the punishment for the most heinous crime, murder, is murder, WTF. That some real 'eye for an eye' old testament barbarianism.

I was trying not to go there, just pointing out the hypocrisy in killing someone and worrying about their last minute suffering. The two in my book will never reconcile. If they care so much why are they ending a life, and if they don't, who cares if they suffer for a couple of minutes. They are killing them for christ sake, pretty sure that is the larger of the two evils, by a very large margin.

Plus it's not good for humanity to spent all this energy trying to figure how to kill people.

It does prove that Christians don't give a damn about following their own religion which clearly teaches things life forgiveness and humanity. Jesus whould never approve of killing anyone, for any reason, yet Christians manage to justify executions, right after they whine and cry about the rights of a zygote.


: It's scary how widespread that attitude is (5.00 / 1) (#36)
by jatkins on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 03:48:28 PM EST

Of course these people don't realize that 1) the Bible is not supposed to dictate American law 2) it's the Old Testament, ffs 3) the whole point of "an eye for an eye" was to limit retribution and keep it proportional and 4) it was metaphorical, not literal.
Looking over the comment threads on the main news sites is pretty disturbing. Even some of the top-rated comments on the NYT article (!) were from people pointing how glad they are the killer was tortured to death.

While the legal system is as skewed in favor of (none / 0) (#16)
by Mr Natural on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 11:06:01 AM EST

the state as it is now, little more than a game, cops routinely lying and prosecutors abetting their lies, suppressing evidence at every turn, there's no reason to trust trial results.

And as Jeralyn has often detailed, the pressures to plea bargain are enormous. Charges piled atop charges. Ten ways to charge every incident. Judges punishing anyone who has the temerity to ask for a trial.

If the system hadn't evolved into such a freakin' game, if trials actually were fair inquiries into guilt or innocence, maybe then we could rid society of the worst and most repellent actors. Until then, no way.


Innocent people have been executed (none / 0) (#18)
by Aspidistra on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 11:41:33 AM EST

That fact alone should be enough to stop this barbaric practice. Also the number of people on death row who were subsequently acquitted is over 100. You'd think that might give people pause.

The thing that gets me is that the people who go on and on about how 'the government messes up everything it touches', 'the government can't do anything right', etc., suddenly become true believers in the perfect infallibity of government officials when it comes to the death penalty.

I mean, if you really believe that the government is incompetent, why would you trust it to accurately carry out the death penalty??


: I'm not sure they're really sure the system is (none / 0) (#35)
by jatkins on Fri Jan 17, 2014 at 03:44:49 PM EST

infallible; they just don't care. Some people really have the attitude, "Take one for the team", which is a gentle way of supporting state-sponsored murder.
The thing that gets me is how they never punish states or individuals for wrongful executions. "Look forward, not backward," or something.