Ohio completes execution using novel two-drug lethal injection protocol... UPDATED with media reports of problems

As reported in this new local article, headlined "Dennis McGuire executed using new 2-drug combination," the great state of Ohio has yet again pioneered and used a brand new execution protocol. Here are the details:

Dennis McGuire and his attorneys wanted his death to be pain-free. His lethal injection at 10:53 a.m. today appeared to be relatively calm and free of the panic and agony that McGuire’s attorneys feared would occur from the combination of drugs used together for the first time in a U.S. execution.

McGuire’s quiet, almost surreal death in a small, windowless room at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility stood in bleak contrast to the violent, terrifying death suffered by his victim, Joy Stewart.

Stewart, 22, of West Alexandria, a small town about 20 miles west of Dayton, was about 30-weeks pregnant when McGuire raped her, choked her, and slashed her throat so deeply it severed both her carotid artery and jugular vein. At the same point, her unborn child died, too, probably in the woods in the rural area of Preble County where her body was found the next day by two hikers.

McGuire, 53, died from an injection of midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a morphine derivative. The combination, never before used in a U.S. execution, was chosen by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction because pentobarbital, the single drug previously used, is no longer available. McGuire's attorneys argued unsuccessfully that the drugs could cause him to struggle for breath though something known as “air hunger,” and die painfully, a violation of a U.S. constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

Dennis McGuire's adult children, Amber and Dennis, along with Dennis’ wife, were among those who watched his execution. The inmate had a tearful visit with his children Carol Avery, the victim’s sister, also witnessed.

The execution had an unusually large media contingent on hand; in recent years, the media had dwindled away as executions became almost routine since Ohio re-instated in the death penalty in 1999. Outside, a handful of anti-death penalty protestors demonstrated as temperatures remain in the low 20s even after sunrise this morning.

UPDATE:  Intriguingly, I have now seen that this CNN report on today's Ohio execution starts with this very different account of how it went:

Ohio inmate Dennis McGuire appeared to gasp and convulse for roughly 10 minutes before he finally died Thursday during his execution by lethal injection using a new combination of drugs, reporters who witnessed it said.

And the article I linked above from my own Columbus Dispatch as of 2:40pm now carries a much different headline and lead:

Killer struggles, gasps repeatedly under new 2-drug combination

Dennis McGuire struggled, repeatedly gasping loudly for air and making snorting and choking sounds, before succumbing to a new two-drug execution method today.

The 24-minute execution process was a “failed, agonizing experiment by the state of Ohio,” said one of the killer’s attorneys, Allen Bohnert, a federal public defender. “The people of the state of Ohio should be appalled by what was done in their name.”

McGuire’s death by lethal injection at 10:53 a.m. may have been marked by the “air hunger” that McGuire’s attorneys feared would occur from the combination of drugs used for the first time in a U.S. execution.

“What we suggested to the court did happen,” said Bohnert, who refused to speculate on whether McGuire suffered. He also would not say whether further legal action would be pursued under the U.S. constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment.