"Prison official had predicted Ohio’s troubling execution," is by Alan Johnson of the Columbus Dispatch.
Ohio prison officials were concerned years before Dennis McGuire’s troubled execution in January that the drug combination they were considering would result in “the condemned gasping for air in a hyperventilating fashion.”
“The scenario would create the appearance, at least, of suffering, which would upset witnesses and inspire litigation,” Greg Trout, former chief legal counsel for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, speculated in a Nov. 6, 2009, email to Dr. Mark Dershwitz, until recently the state’s expert witness on execution drugs and protocol.
However, Dershwitz said he did not think the combination of midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone would produce that effect. “I have never seen the scenario described in (my 27-year career) though I will admit nothing is impossible,” Dershwitz wrote.
Previously confidential emails between Trout and Dershwitz were published in an article in New Republic magazine on Sunday.
Earlier coverage of the Ohio lethal injection issues begins at the link.
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