KILLING HIM HARSHLY

Ohio officials claimed that this past Thursday’s execution of convicted killer, Dennis McGuire would not be done in a manner that constituted cruel and unusual punishment, a penalty banned by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The two-drug cocktail that officials planned to use during McGuire’s execution by lethal injection was supposed to bring about his death quickly and painlessly. At least, that's what the state of Ohio claimed in briefs filed by its Attorney General in both federal and state court proceedings when McGuire challenged Ohio’s procedure for carrying out the death penalty. Unfortunately, McGuire’s execution was anything but quick and painless.

According to witnesses who observed the execution, including two of McGuire’s adult children and several newspaper reporters, McGuire gasped for air and made loud snorting noises for somewhere between between 15 and 19 minutes after Ohio’s experimental two-drug cocktail was administered.

That scenario was exactly what McGuire’s lawyer predicted during arguments before various courts as he was trying to block McGuire’s execution, but the courts and Ohio’s governor refused to listen. Moreover, the assistant attorney general representing Ohio had the audacity to suggest that it was perfectly acceptable for McGuire to suffer pain during the procedure. What’s next? Is torture to become an acceptable part of the death penalty process?

It has always been my belief that, at best, the death penalty is a foolish proposition, and at worst, it’s altogether cruel and unjust. I see no worthwhile purpose in needlessly terminating the life of another human being when a life behind bars would serve as a greater punishment. That said, if a state is going to have the death penalty on its books, it ought to recognize that the penalty is a deprivation of life, not torture followed by death.

States have stopped using the hangman’s noose, the electric chair and the gas chamber as methods for carrying out the death penalty. That’s because people came to recognize that those methods involved inflicting several pain and suffering upon the condemned before death occurred, and in many cases, that suffering amounted to torture. McGuire’s death proved that Ohio’s two-drug cocktail amounted to torture, too. It must be banned immediately!