Dennis McGuire took 25 minutes to die on an execution table in Ohio on Thursday.
The state used a new, untested drug cocktail for his execution — midazolam, an anti-anxiety drug, and hydromorphone, a narcotic derived from morphine.
At first, everything was going according to plan. He fell unconscious after the drugs filled his veins. A few minutes later, though, his supposedly humane death became a struggle. His stomach heaved. His fists clenched.
“He started making all these horrible, horrible noises, and at that point, that’s when I covered my eyes and my ears,” his daughter, Amber McGuire, told The New York Times.
Fast forward a week, and now there’s a debate in Ohio over abolishing the death penalty. McGuire’s death has sparked a controversy about whether his punishment qualifies as cruel and unusual, a violation of his Eighth Amendment right.
“He is being treated far more humanely than he treated her,” the victim’s family said in a statement after the execution. That sentiment is echoed in capital punishment supporters around the country.
The death penalty can seem rational. McGuire was convicted of raping a pregnant, newlywed woman and then stabbing her to death. In spite of that heinous crime, some still find his punishment too harsh.
The death penalty is difficult to talk about. How can we, as a society, justify punishing crime with murder when it’s against the law in the first place?
Capital punishment has been around for centuries. For some crimes, it may seem fitting, becoming society’s method of retribution for the most disgusting of them. It’s easier to see, in these cases, why the death penalty is still used in 32 states.
The death penalty was ruled unconstitutional for a period in the 1970s after the Supreme Court worried it was applied inconsistently. After more narrow definitions were drafted, executions resumed.
Unfortunately, evidence shows that the death penalty is still applied inconsistently. Like many problems plaguing the U.S., it stems from systemic racism.
A 1990 report from the U.S. General Accounting office found a defendant was more likely to get the death penalty if the victim was white, which has been confirmed through other studies. In fact, a 2007 study by Yale Law School on executions in Connecticut found African-American defendants receive the death penalty at triple the rate of white defendants when the victim is white.
Racial discrimination in sentencing isn’t the only problem here, either. Wrongful convictions are another important consideration when thinking about capital punishment.
More than 130 people have been released from death row after proving their innocence. On Amnesty International’s website, you can see some examples of how people were wrongfully accused. Prosecutors elicited false statements and withheld evidence that would sway the jury away from the death penalty.
Since 1976, more than 1,200 people have been executed. That means there’s roughly a one in 10 chance that someone on death row is innocent. This only includes data of those exonerated; it’s likely there are more who wrongfully die.
Even manufacturers of drugs used in lethal injections are stepping up against the death penalty. A new drug cocktail was used because the companies making the old drugs refused to allow their products to kill people.
Capital punishment is a complicated issue. But even though justice is blind, we don’t have to be. It’s important to remember that we are human, and we have no right to decide who lives and who dies.
[Justin Jones is a UF journalism senior. His columns appear on Thursday. A version of this column ran on page 6 on 1/23/2014 under the headline "Death penalty is rife with inconsistencies"]
