Dennis McGuire (murderer)

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Dennis B. McGuire (born February 10, 1960 in Warren County , Ohio - † January 16, 2014 in Lucasville , Ohio) was an American casual laborer and convicted murderer whose execution sparked a widespread discussion about the death penalty in the United States .

Crime and Conviction

Dennis McGuire was because of the crimes committed on 11 February 1989 abduction, rape and murder of 22-year-old Joy Stewart pregnant eight months by a court in the US state of Ohio on 23 December 1994 sentenced to death. He had previously confessed to the fact. As his lawyers repeatedly filed objections and motions against the proceedings and the conviction, the enforcement of the sentence was delayed.

Most recently, they had filed an emergency appeal against the use of a previously untested mixture of narcotics in the execution by lethal injection . Ohio was the first US state to use a combination of hydromorphone and midazolam instead of the pentobarbital that has been used since 2011 . The background to this change was the export ban imposed by the European Commission on such preparations by European manufacturers for executions in the USA and the resulting limited availability. The competent federal court did not want to contradict the consequences of a minute-long agony, feared by McGuire and his defense lawyers , but kept the "risk covered by the constitution ". Ohio's Deputy Attorney General Thomas Madden added: "Nobody is entitled to a painless execution."

execution

On January 16, 2014, McGuire was executed in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility State Prison in Lucasville. He was the first delinquent to use the new procedure. Eyewitnesses, including his adult children, reported an excruciating death. McGuire gasped loudly a few minutes after giving the injection, tried to straighten his upper body, made gagging noises, clenched his hands and gasped for air. His death could only be determined 24 minutes (according to another account, 26 minutes) after the procedure began, making his execution one of the longest in US history to date. On the other hand, both the official record of the execution and the final report to the prison authorities spoke of an orderly process. McGuire was the 53rd inmate executed in Ohio and the 1,362th overall in the United States since the 1976 statute-enforcement moratorium was lifted.

aftermath

The discussion about a "humane execution" sparked after McGuire's death led to legislative initiatives in Wyoming and Missouri to execute convicted criminals again in the future by firing squad . The Senators of the US state of Tennessee voted in April 2014 by a majority of 23 to 3 in favor of reintroducing electric chair execution . The lawyers of a delinquent in Louisiana , who was to be executed according to the method used at McGuire, obtained an initial 90-day stay of execution on February 5, 2014, which was later extended indefinitely, due to the unresolved facts about their legality.

Despite ongoing discussions about McGuire's execution, 38-year-old Clayton Lockett was executed in Oklahoma on April 29, 2014 with an equally untried combination of midazolam , vecuronium, and potassium chloride . Upon administration, a vein burst and Lockett had violent reactions that suggested an excruciating process of death. Lockett died of a heart attack 43 minutes after the execution, which had been abandoned as a result of the incident, began . Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin ordered an investigation into the incident and imposed a two-week moratorium on all further executions, which was extended to six months by the Oklahoma Supreme Court on May 8, 2014. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called for the "cruel and inhuman practice" to be abolished following the executions of McGuire and Lockett. Oklahoma resumed the method of execution used by Lockett with the execution of Charles Warner (1967-2015) on January 15, 2015. On July 23, 2014, the two-time murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood (1958-2014) was executed in Arizona with the same poison cocktail as McGuire. Wood's death could only be determined about two hours after the administration began. Republican Senator John McCain literally called Woods' execution "torture." Arizona imposed a moratorium on all further executions pending full investigation of the case.

The "botched" execution of McGuire had serious consequences, especially in the US state of Ohio. First, Ohio's Governor John Kasich postponed an execution scheduled for March 19, 2014 for eight months. The Ohio Penitentiary Authority announced on April 28, 2014 that it would increase the dosage of the poison cocktail used at McGuire for further executions, but did not acknowledge any mistakes in the original procedure. In May 2014, a court order suspended all further executions until August 15 of the same year in order to verify the legality of the execution method. The moratorium was extended to January 15, 2015 in August 2014. An anesthesiologist appointed by McGuire's family concluded in an opinion published in August 2014 that the substances used in the execution were unsuitable and caused unnecessary pain. In December 2014, McGuire's family indicted Ohio executions expert, anesthetist and pharmacologist Mark Dershwitz, who resigned in August 2014 amid the McGuire execution controversy. In early January 2015, the Ohio Penitentiary Authority announced that it would not use the drugs used in McGuire's execution in future executions and would instead use the pre-2011 thiopental again . In addition, the Ohio Senate passed a law in December 2014 that allows drug suppliers to remain anonymous. To implement these measures, the six executions planned for 2015 were suspended and initially postponed to 2016, and finally to 2017 due to the lack of availability of the necessary drugs. The reversal of the execution process used at McGuire prompted his relatives to drop their previous lawsuits against the State of Ohio in early February 2015. As the first delinquent in Ohio after McGuire, 43-year-old Roland R. Phillips was executed on July 26, 2017 with a combination of midazolam, rocuronium and potassium chloride.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Frank Patalong: EU Commission stops export of execution poison to USA. In: Spiegel Online of December 11, 2011 (accessed on May 4, 2014).
  2. ↑ Michael Remke: Ohio experiments with a new deadly cocktail. In: Die Welt vom January 15, 2014 (accessed January 21, 2014).
  3. ↑ Marc Pitzke : Brutal Executions: More and more US states want to abolish the death penalty. In: Spiegel Online from January 26, 2014 (accessed February 6, 2014).
  4. ↑ Alexander Demling / AFP / AP / dpa : New lethal injection let death row inmates suffer for ten minutes. In: Spiegel Online from January 16, 2014 (accessed January 21, 2014).
  5. ↑ George Szpiro : Botched Execution in Ohio. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of January 18, 2014 (accessed February 8, 2014).
  6. ↑ a b Michael Remke: US politicians are demanding shooting instead of lethal injection. In: Die Welt from January 21, 2014 (accessed on January 21, 2014).
  7. ↑ SOFC Message Report from January 15 to 16, 2014 (English, accessed on documentcloud.org on February 10, 2014).
  8. ↑ Joseph L. Andrews: Review of the Execution Process for the Execution Inmate McGuire A305-382 of January 27, 2014 (accessed on documentcloud.org on February 10, 2014).
  9. ^ Dennis B. McGuire in the clarkprosecutor.org database (accessed January 28, 2015).
  10. ↑ Michael Remke: Inmates should go back to the electric chair. In: Die Welt from April 13, 2014 (accessed April 13, 2014).
  11. ↑ UPI : Louisiana: 90 days respite for Sepulvado. Report on the website of the Initiative against the Death Penalty eV from February 5, 2014 (accessed on February 7, 2014).
  12. ↑ Della Hassele: Executions in Louisiana on hold until at least June. In: The Lens of November 17, 2014 (accessed January 28, 2015).
  13. ↑ Benjamin Schulz / dpa / AP / Reuters : botched execution - murderer dies after a long agony. In: Spiegel Online of April 30, 2014 (accessed April 30, 2014).
  14. ↑ AFP: Executions in Oklahoma are suspended. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of May 9, 2014 (accessed May 9, 2014).
  15. ↑ Benjamin Knaack / AP / AFP: UN condemns agonizing execution of Clayton Lockett. In: Spiegel Online from May 2, 2014 (accessed May 3, 2014).
  16. ^ Marc Pitzke: After scandal execution: Oklahoma executes murderers again. In: Spiegel Online from January 16, 2015 (accessed January 31, 2015).
  17. ↑ dpa: Two-time murderer tortured to death in the USA. In: Rheinische Post from July 24, 2014 (accessed July 26, 2014).
  18. ↑ Birger Menke, AP: Senator McCain calls the execution of Joseph Wood torture. In: Spiegel Online from July 26, 2014 (accessed July 26, 2014).
  19. ↑ AFP / AP: Arizona is suspending executions for the time being. In: Spiegel Online from July 25, 2014 (accessed July 26, 2014).
  20. ^ Alan Johnson: Next Ohio execution postponed by Kasich. In: The Columbus Dispatch of February 8, 2014 (accessed May 1, 2014).
  21. ↑ AP: Ohio to increase dosages of lethal injection drugs but defends execution of gasping inmate.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Daily Journal of April 28, 2014 (accessed May 30, 2014).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.dailyjournal.net  
  22. ^ AP: Ohio judge halts executions of convicted killers after executed inmate 'suffocated and had massive heart attack in botched lethal injection. In: Daily Mail of May 28, 2014 (accessed June 23, 2014).
  23. ^ AP: Ohio: Moratorium on Capital Punishment Is Extended. In: The New York Times, August 11, 2014 (accessed September 4, 2014).
  24. ^ AP: Anesthesiologist: Ohio inmate suffered during execution. In: USA Today, August 12, 2014 (accessed September 4, 2014).
  25. ^ Andrew Welsh-Huggins / AP: Family of executed Ohio inmate sues expert witness. In: The Washington Times, December 16, 2014 (accessed January 5, 2015).
  26. ↑ AP: Expert witness in US execution cases will no longer defend states' methods. In: The Guardian, August 20, 2014 (accessed January 5, 2015).
  27. ^ Alan Johnson: Murderers in Ohio receive more time to live. In: Columbus Dispatch of January 10, 2015 (accessed January 11, 2015).
  28. ↑ Editor's note : After botched executions, states add secrecy to the lethal injection process. In: The Washington Post, January 27, 2015 (accessed January 28, 2015).
  29. ↑ Christian Rickens, dpa: Death penalty in the USA: Ohio suspends executions. In: Spiegel Online from January 31, 2015 (accessed January 31, 2015).
  30. ↑ Jeremy Pelzer: Ohio again delays executions because of trouble finding lethal-injection drugs. Article on cleveland.com from October 19, 2015 (accessed March 7, 2016).
  31. ↑ Jeremy Pelzer: Dennis McGuire's family drops lawsuit challenging his controversial execution. Article on cleveland.com from February 3, 2015 (accessed February 10, 2015).
  32. ↑ Eric Levenson, AnneClaire Stapleton: Ohio carries out first execution since 2014. In: CNN of July 26, 2017 (English, accessed August 23, 2017)
  33. ^ Mark Berman: Ohio executes Ronald Phillips, resuming lethal injections after three-year break. In: The Washington Post of July 27, 2017 (accessed August 23, 2017).
personal data
SURNAME McGuire, Dennis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McGuire, Dennis B.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American murderer
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Warren County , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 2014
Place of death Lucasville , Ohio