Dennis Mcguire's Argument Against The Anti-Death Penalty

Improved Essays
The family of an Ohio inmate whose Thursday execution took nearly 25 minutes and was marked with ten minutes of gasping and struggling will file a lawsuit over the circumstances of his death.Dennis McGuire was put to death using a combination of intravenous drugs that had never before been used in a lethal injection execution. John Paul Rion, the attorney representing McGuire’s children in their lawsuit, said at a press conference that the execution violated McGuire’s constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.“I can’t think of any other way to describe it than torture,” daughter Amber McGuire said in a statement. While fighting last week to block the execution, McGuire’s lawyers argued that the new drug combination could …show more content…
“I think they’re going to look at these challenges, especially those involving new sources and new drugs, and ask the state to prove their case,” Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the anti-death penalty Death Penalty Information Center told msnbc. The fact that doctors correctly predicted gasping and “air hunger” could make it easier for judges to prevent more untested methods from being used.“The burden is going to be shifting a bit in these hearings. Every lethal injection gets challenged in the courts, but now there’s going to be more scrutiny of the state’s methods,” Dieter said. Dennis McGuire was sentenced to death for the 1989 rape and murder of Joy Stewart. The state’s Assistant Attorney General Thomas Madden argued in response to McGuire’s lawyers that “you’re not entitled to a pain-free execution.” A federal judge agreed, but ordered the state to keep the syringes, vials, and packaging used in the execution. Speaking after McGuire’s death, his attorney Allen Bohnert said, “The people of the state of Ohio should be appalled at what was done here today in their

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Shemtob And Lat Analysis

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In particular, the authorization of an execution varies from state to state. For example, the state of Utah in March 2015 reauthorized a firing squad in the event that the drugs for lethal injection are unavailable. Consequently, views from the government change as to what is an acceptable form of execution, but the empathy we can show for the convict, during an execution, on their last day does not need to…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In the Baze v. Rees case, two inmates named Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling were convicted for murder and sentenced with the death penalty. In 1992, Ralph Baze killed a Kentucky County Sheriff with three shots fired in his back, and also killed a deputy sheriff with two shots in the back and one in the back of his head (Rushford). The other inmate, Thomas Bowling rammed into a car in the dry cleaning parking lot; he got out of the car and shot the couple and the two-year-old child in the car and drove away in 1990 (Rushford). Baze and Bowling had claimed that Kentucky’s lethal injections is cruel and unusual punishment which is a violation of his Eighth Amendment rights. The lethal injections is a process that includes a dose of Diazepam which…

    • 190 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kansas Vs Crane Case Study

    • 1265 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Content of Litigation Plaintiff: Argued the New York ban violates the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause by allowing ill adults to end their own lives. Also brought up the point that there was no direct distinguished difference between the two ways. Defendant: Defended the ban stating that it prolonged the lifespan of the patients and it was valid as it had important public interest that satisfied the constitutional requirements. III.…

    • 1265 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cole Cannon Case Summary

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages

    On the evening of July 15, 2003, Cole Cannon went to the home of Evan Miller to make a drug deal with Millers mother (Miller v. Alabama, 2012). Evan Miller and his co-defendant Colby Smith followed Cannon back to his own trailer where all three of them smoked marijuana and played drinking games. After a while Cannon passed out and Miller stole Cannon’s wallet. Miller and Smith split $300.00 between them (Miller v. Alabama, 2012).…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American judicial system is riddled with corruption, racism, and privilege. In his book, Just Mercy, author and lawyer Bryan Stevenson chronicles the unfortunate and rapid deterioration of the mental health of his client and friend Walter McMillian following his release from death row. Mental illness resulting from wrongful imprisonment on death row stands as a deplorable and preventable collateral consequence of the negligence of the judicial system. The trauma of the death row experience as an innocent man sparks Walter’s symptoms of anxiety and dementia.…

    • 713 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Teresa Lewis Case

    • 1204 Words
    • 5 Pages

    On September 23rd, 2011, Teresa Lewis, a citizen of Danville, Virginia, was pronounced dead by lethal-injection at approximately 9:13 p.m. (Crawford 74). Being that 46 executions took place in 2010, Teresa Lewis’s case would seem indifferentiable to the others; however, evaluations of Lewis’s mental state incited controversy based on the morality of her case (“The Death Penalty…”). The controversy erupted after Lewis’s defense lawyer filed a position for clemency briefly after disclosing that she had an I.Q. of 72, providing the justification that Lewis “did not possess the intelligence to have planned for the killings” (“US woman Teresa…”). Much to the dismay of her defense lawyers, family, and advocates, Teresa Lewis still underwent lethal injection for conspiring to murder her husband and stepson.…

    • 1204 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The piece written by George Ryan struck my interest. Considering, I plan to argue against the death penalty this speech presented me with ideas to aid my argument. However, before I talk about the Ryan speech, I will talk about how the discussion in class aided in my understanding of how to approach my argument. One argument Professor Dullea addressed was the murdering innocent people argument. It was discussed that we spend so much time and money, so there is the proper things occurring to prevent the death of innocent people.…

    • 261 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    There was a question of whether Mills was aware and conscious of the suffering during this time, and evidently, was given a round of unsuccessful pain-killers and anesthetics to prevent the continuation of this apparent suffering. At 2:52 pm, Dr. Morrison entered his room and injected a lethal dose of potassium chloride, instantly killing him. In 1997, Nancy Morrison was charged with first-degree murder, but then was let off and reprimanded instead due to the uncertainty of what truly caused Paul Mills’ death. Ultimately, this case is questioning whether or not Dr. Morrison inherently committed murder through non-voluntary active euthanasia or whether she voluntarily committed active euthanasia. First off, Utilitarian logic is aimed at analyzing the costs and benefits of the action.…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Pros Of Confederation

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that citizens have no Constitutional right to end their lives. Kevorkian was sentenced to a ten to twenty-five year jail time and later paroled in 2007. Due to the attention brought to the Ninth amendment by Kevorkian’s case, several states have legalized death with dignity, agreeing that people have the right to their own bodies and…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    He meets a myriad of people incarcerated for many different reasons, but most of them share one commonality; the death sentence they have incurred is unjust. In fact, in most of these cases, it is the system that fails these people and sentences them to die.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    As John Morrison exclaimed,“It should be clear that the death penalty does just the opposite of promoting decency and respect for life... It can never be applied fairly.” Since the mid nineteenth century, inmates on death row have been murdered by a plethora of gruesome methods, such as venomous lethal injections, gas chambers, and electrocution. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there have been 1,413 executions in the United States from 1976 to the present. Although the number of death penalty verdicts are decreasing, flaws in the American judicial system have caused an increase in the amount of punishing wrongfully accused suspects to the death penalty.…

    • 1178 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One night in the 1970’s, Henry Alford visited a bar that he usually attends, to see a prostitute. According to serval reports, upon his arrival at the bar, Alford got into a fist fight with another gentleman. After the fist fight, a witness claimed to see Alford retrieve his gun from his house and profess to want to kill a man. Shortly after, the same witness claims to have heard Alford confess to have committed the crime. Following his arrest, he was appointed a fairly young lawyer.…

    • 387 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Electric Chair Pros And Cons

    • 2503 Words
    • 11 Pages

    “Officials in California delayed the execution of 46-year-old Michael Morales, sentenced to death for a 1981 murder. His lawyers argued that a lethal injection would constitute cruel and unusual punishment, prohibited under the US constitution” (Hooper). But, that is not true, the Supreme Court along with the people who give and handle the ways the death penalty is given have stated that, yes, sometimes the death penalty and the way it 's done will cause some pain. They also state that the death penalty is not unconstitutional just by the fact of how much pain is given along with the penalty. As stated earlier the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is humane and that cruel and unusual punishment is only when excessive torture is given.…

    • 2503 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A lawyer tried to persuade a judge to allow the recording of Andrew Grant DeYoung’s execution so see whether or not it causes any excruciating pain. A defense lawyer argued against this stating that no one wants to see anyone go through this kind of torture, Shemtob and Lat disagreed and stated on page fifty three, “executions in the United States ought to be made public.” They go on to point out that a functioning democracy demands maximum accountability and transparency; meaning as long as executions happen behind closed doors we,…

    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    America Death Penalty

    • 1015 Words
    • 4 Pages

    AMERICA IS FALLING OUT OF LOVE WITH LETHAL INJECTION According to the economist, on the date of March 19th, the state of Texas was going to be executing the well-known Ray Jasper, who was convicted of the murder of an recording studio and was sentenced to Life with death by lethal injection would ultimately end his life. On the afternoon, of his Death a multifarious group of protesters would gather outside, of the Huntsville Unit, which was well known for being the most popularly used execution chamber. The protesters would read poems written by Jasper, and even a priest was in attendance, he would be in charge of ringing a bell, for each year that he was in prison. It was reported that no one from the prison officially announce of his…

    • 1015 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays

Related Topics