Civil Liberties

Lawyer: Ohio Death Row Inmate's Execution Botched

New drug took more than 20 minutes to kill him

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A condemned man appeared to gasp several times and took an unusually long time to die — more than 20 minutes — in an execution carried out Thursday with a combination of drugs never before tried in the U.S.

Dennis McGuire's attorney Allen Bohnert called the convicted killer's execution "a failed, agonizing experiment" and added: "The people of the state of Ohio should be appalled at what was done here today in their names."