The family of Dennis McGuire, who was executed by lethal injection using two drugs that prolonged his execution, has sued the state and a pharmaceutical company.
McGuire was executed at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility on January 16 for raping and killing a 22-year-old pregnant woman in 1989.
The lethal injection, a combination of midazolam and hydromorphone, was untested before it wased o execute McGuire.
McGuire took 26 minutes to die. According to his children, the state acted illegally in executing him by using two drugs never intended to kill people.
Several state legislators in Ohio along with the American Civil Liberties Union have urged the state's governor John Kasich to suspend executions. "This is not about Dennis McGuire, his terrible crimes, or the crimes of others who await execution on death row," the ACLU wrote to Kasich, according to the Irish Times.
"It is about our duty as a society that sits in judgment of those who are convicted of crimes to treat them humanely and ensure their punishment does not violate the constitution."
The family filed the lawsuit Friday afternoon in the U.S. District Court in Columbus. They further said that McGuire's execution was "cruel and unusual" because of how he gasped, snorted, choked and clenched his fists, reported the Columbus Dispatch. The lawsuit claimed that the state violated the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Jon Paul Rion, attorney of McGuire's children, said that the lawsuit was to "cause a change in our death penalty system."
The drugs were taken from Central Pharmacy, a drug collaborative program run by the Ohio Department of Mental Health.
