Ohio: Did lawyer ask killer to put on ‘big show’ at execution?

Dennis McGuire

The inmate who gasped for air and choked during an unusually long execution process this month was urged by his attorney to put on a “big show” that could single-handedly bring capital punishment to a halt in Ohio, the head of the prison’s execution team says.

But those allegations were rejected yesterday by Ohio Public Defender Tim Young after a weeklong investigation following the Jan. 16 execution.

Public defender Rob Lowe, one of Dennis McGuire’s attorneys, returned to work yesterday after a weeklong administrative suspension after an internal investigation found “no wrongdoing,” Young said.

But three incident reports from prison staff members released to The Dispatch by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction tell a different story.

Two members of the prison execution team said they overheard McGuire talking with his ex-wife, Darlene Thomas, the day before the execution, describing what he had been instructed to do by his attorney when he began feeling the effects of the chemicals. “When I begin to gasp for air I will have my thumb in the air per my attorney. ... If it wasn’t for my daughter, I would really put on a show.”

A third, more-detailed report from the unidentified execution-team leader recounted a conversation he had with McGuire later the same night. McGuire said Lowe told him that if things went wrong during the execution, he “would be the sole reason that executions no longer happen in Ohio, and all his buddies on Death Row would be saved.”

In an interview, Young confirmed the details of what happened but vehemently denied that Lowe or anyone on his staff urged McGuire to fake suffocation.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “We would never in any way try to corrupt this process or ask our client to feign any symptoms.”

An internal investigation led by Elizabeth Miller, deputy director in Young’s office, involved interviews with 11 people and reviews of emails and phone messages. “We concluded that there wasn’t any substantial proof or evidence” that McGuire was coached to feign symptoms, Young said.

Young said that in McGuire’s execution, as in all death-penalty cases, public defenders discuss the process step-by-step with the inmate. “We want to make sure we tell them exactly what is going to occur.

“We did ask Mr. McGuire to signal us so we would know when he lost consciousness,” Young said.

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Source: The Columbus Dispatch, January 28, 2014

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