Last week in Ohio, Dennis McGuire
was executed with an untested cocktail of two lethal drugs (rather than the
standard dose of three) and it took about 15 minutes for him to die. This has led to outrage at the length of
death, and calls by some states to re institute the firing squad.
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| Dennis McGuire |
Lost in all the coverage is some
of the backstory on McGuire. McGuire was
initially arrested ten months after Joy
Stewart was killed on February 12, 1989. He wasn’t arrested for her
murder. He was arrested on an unrelated
assault charge. (See here) Without consulting a lawyer, he
tried to negotiate a lesser sentence on the assault by giving prosecutors
information on Stewart’s murder, by blaming his brother-in-law. Thing is, the brother-in-law had nothing to
do with it. And there was DNA evidence
from the crime and McGuire was in custody, giving police ready access to his
DNA, which a decade later confirmed his role in the murder. His plan to blame his brother-in-law
for the murder quickly fell apart. (See Fox News Story ).
Police quickly confirmed his
guilt. McGuire later admitted he was
guilty and responsible in a letter to Governor John Kasich last month.
In all the coverage about how
agonizing the twenty-minute death of McGuire was, let’s not forget that he
admitted to murdering a pregnant woman, kept quiet about it for a decade, then
tried to blame his innocent brother-in-law, and would readily have seen his
brother-in-law go the death chamber if his cunning plan had gone through.
I’m not saying that we ought to
condone painful deaths of inmates. But
the amount of ink spilled about a twenty minute death versus a five minute
death might take a back seat for a minute to recount that this guy admitted to
kidnapping and killing a pregnant woman and then tried to blame a family member
for it.
Also remember, if you’re a
criminal defendant, don’t go trying to plea bargain with prosecutors on your
own. Get an attorney’s help. McGuire was
not only homicidal, not only tried to pin it on an in-law, but was also
completely inept at trying to plea bargain on his own behalf.
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