"Dennis McGuire Could Be The First US Inmate Put To Death With New Drug Combo," is the AP report by Andrew Welsh-Huggins, via Huffington Post. Here's an extended excerpt from the beginning:
A federal judge in Ohio will once again weigh competing testimony Friday from expert witnesses sparring over the effects of a lethal injection method never tried in the United States.
An anesthesiologist hired by lawyers for condemned inmate Dennis McGuire says the state's untried two-drug process will subject him to agony and terror as he tries to catch his breath.
The state says its own anesthesiology expert is ready to argue that experiments have shown nothing of the sort will happen.
Ohio plans to use intravenous doses of two drugs, midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a painkiller, to put McGuire to death. The method has been part of Ohio's execution process since 2009, though never used. The drugs were chosen because of a shortage of other lethal injection drugs.
Judge Gregory Frost scheduled a hearing Friday for McGuire's legal team to make its case ahead of the inmate's execution set for Thursday.
Such dueling arguments have taken place often in Frost's courtroom over the years. Frost has heard numerous arguments for and against Ohio's lethal injection process.
He has never ruled the drugs themselves unconstitutional, but he has at times harshly criticized the state for conducting haphazard executions by not closely following its own policies.
Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link. Related posts are in the lethal injection category index.
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