The US is among the few countries in the world where the death penalty is still in force. It is fully permitted in 24 of the 50 states and execution by hanging, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad and lethal injection are all allowed.
But although only a handful of executions take place each year, there is still room for those methods to go horribly wrong, especially when the most common method of lethal injection is used.
One such instance was convicted murder Dennis McGuire, who was executed using a new, never-before-tried lethal injection of a cocktail of hydromorphone and midazolam in Ohio on January 16, 2014.
It was the first time the combination had been used after the maker of the previous execution drug refused to allow its use in capital punishment.
Lawyers for McGuire had said the drugs placed him at risk of air hunger, a phenomenon which causes terror as the patient struggles to catch his breath.
McGuire – who had been sentenced to death for the 1989 rape and murder of pregnant Joy Stewart – appeared to gasp and snort before dying. According to a lawsuit, McGuire spent 25 minutes suffering “repeated cycles of snorting, gurgling and arching his back”.
His stomach was heaving and his fist was clenched in what “looked and sounded as though he was suffocating”. A Catholic priest present at the execution branded it “inhumane”.
Lawrence Hummer, who was pastor of St Mary’s Church in Chillicothe, Ohio, wrote at the time that McGuire had been wheeled into to the execution room strapped to a gurney “looking as though he were on the cross”.
He said that after he was injected, McGuire’s stomach “swelled up in an unusual way, as though he had a hernia”. He then struggled for air and gasped audibly for air for around 11 minutes.
The pastor said McGuire’s gasps could be heard through the glass wall and his gasping faded into small puffs of his mouth. He wrote: “It was much like a fish lying along the shore puffing for that one gasp of air that would allow it to breathe.
“There is no question in my mind that Dennis McGuire suffered greatly over many minutes. I’d been told that a “normal” execution lasted five minutes – this experimental two-drug concoction had taken 26 minutes. I consider that inhumane.”
A lawsuit was later dropped by the family after the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction announced it would abandon the execution method it had used on McGuire. The state did not carry out another execution until July 20.