January 19th, DAYTON- Dayton-based law firm, Rion, Rion, and Rion will file a federal law suit on behalf of the family of Dennis McGuire, claiming that the suffocation execution that took place on January 16, 2014 constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Eye witness accounts said that Mr. McGuire suffered as he died, gasping and struggling for breath for at least ten minutes.
“Shortly after the warden buttoned his jacket to signal the start of the execution, my dad began gasping and struggling to breathe,” said Amber McGuire, Dennis McGuire’s daughter “I watched his stomach heave. I watched him try to sit up against the straps on the gurney. I watched him repeatedly clench his fist. It appeared to me he was fighting for his life but suffocating.”
Hours after the execution took place, Terry Collins, who served as the Director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections from 2006 to 2010 and oversaw 33 executions, stated, “Anyone who witnessed that execution will never forget it, and some will be deeply traumatized for life. I’m of the opinion that no state employee should be asked to take on such a lifelong burden. Ohio needs to get out of the execution business.”
In response to the suffocation executions, Ohioans to Stop Executions, on behalf of the millions of Ohioans who oppose the death penalty, calls on Governor Kasich to issue an immediate moratorium.
“An immediate moratorium on executions is the only solution, short of repeal, to address these continuing issues with executions. The suffocation execution of Dennis McGuire shines the spotlight on the unworkable nature of the problems Ohio has in the death house. The experiment has failed and that is plainly obvious.
“For millions of Ohioans, it’s not about how we kill our prisoners; it’s that we kill them at all. The Ohio Supreme Court’s Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty refused to make recommendations on execution procedures and now we know why. This system is not working and it should stop.”