Deborah Denno comments to the New York Times on the execution of Dennis McGuire, which took 15 minutes to die by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. Although eyewitness accounts differ slightly on how much McGuire, 53, struggled and gasped in those final minutes, because the execution took unusually long and because Ohio was using a new, untested cocktail of drugs in the procedure, the episode reignited debate over lethal injection.
“Whether there were choking sounds or it was just snorting, the execution didn’t go the way it was supposed to go,” said Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School and an expert in lethal injection cases. “Usually, lethal injection takes about four or five minutes, if done properly.”
Death penalty opponents had been watching the case closely, both because of the new drug cocktail and because some anesthesiologists said there was a danger they would produce a condition called air hunger, in which the gasping victim is unable to absorb oxygen.
“A different procedure was used in the last four executions, depending on which state they were in,” Ms. Denno said. “It certainly increases the likelihood or the risk that there will be some sort of problem.”
Ms. Denno said: “I certainly believe there has been an increase in problems. “I think this is the worst situation that lethal injection has been in since it was first administered 32 years ago.”
Read the entire New York Times story.