Guest AuthorLet me make sure I have the facts straight. In 1989, Dennis McGuire raped, brutalized and stabbed to death Joy Stewart, a young and pregnant newlywed. He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to be executed.
Now 25 years later, his last appeals ran out and the order of the court was carried out. The deed was done with doses of a sedative and painkiller that had never been used before to put an inmate to death in the U.S.
He took 26 minutes to die, but no one knows how long he was consciously aware. He gasped, made snorting sounds and repeatedly opened and shut his mouth during the execution. He took 11 minutes more that the average inmate to die, as he lay on a bed in the Ohio execution chamber.
McGuire’s unusually slow execution amounted to “torture,” the man’s adult children said Friday as they announced plans to sue over his death. “I don’t feel like anybody deserves that — families, or my dad, anybody on death row — nobody deserves to go through that,” said McGuire’s son, also named Dennis.
McGuire’s daughter, Amber McGuire, said she was so horrified that she covered her ears so she wouldn’t hear the sounds he made. His attorney called it “unquestionably cruel.”
While the U.S. Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment, “you’re not entitled to a pain-free execution.” Now opponents of the death penalty are jumping on the bandwagon for more reasons to put a halt to the practice.
As a young Hillsborough County homicide prosecutor, I prosecuted and sent two men to death row. I took my role seriously every time I stood before a jury and asked them to condemn a defendant to die.
In each case the defendant’s acts warranted it and the law required it. Capitol punishment is a just reward for those who do acts of violence and take the innocent lives of others. It is also a deterrent to crime.
No one should gloat when any person dies at the hands of another. The taking of a human life, no matter what one has done, is never a pleasant experience. But permanently ridding society of ruthless killers like Dennis McGuire is a worthy goal. Society demands protection from the worst or the worst.
Capitol punishment is a permanent subject of moral and political debate. We can expect that the debate will only be reinvigorated by the McGuire case.
Execution is called for in response to extreme crimes, ones like murder and treason that threaten domestic tranquility and homeland security. It should never be employed arbitrarily or frivolously.
In fact, observing the use of capital punishment in the Old Testament actually shows us how precious human life is to God. Because human beings are image-bearers of God, murder was such a serious affront to both God and man that it had to be answered with the blood of the murderer.
And historically, execution was not necessarily associated with pain-free death. Even in the United States, methods like the firing squad and the gas chamber provided for less than a “pain-free” death.
Who says that cold-blooded killers have a right to be executed like a worn-out puppy being put down?
So, McGuire snorted a few times and opened and shut his mouth during the short time it took him to die. His family says that was “cruel and unusual punishment,” and amounted to “torture.
They said, “no one deserves to go through that.” I wonder what Joy Stewart would say if she were alive today.
