Ohio, peine de mort et nouveau mélange de drogues: le cas de Dennis McGuire

Autre épisode troublant dans l'évolution de la peine capitale aux États-Unis. L'état de l'Ohio a exécuté Dennis McGuire aujourd'hui en utilisant un nouveau mélange de médicaments. Les avocats de McGuire craignaient que leur client ne souffre et que la manière de l'exécuter était en contradiction avec la constitution américaine qui proscrit les châtiments cruels et inhumains. On a répondu à cet argument que la Constitution de garantissait pas que ça se déroule sans douleur. La mort de McGuire fut plus lente que pour les exécutions habituelles et elle a donné lieu à des réactions physique qu'on n'observe généralement pas. McGuire fut jugé coupable du viol et du meurtre d'une femme enceinte.

 "Strapped to a gurney in the execution chamber, McGuire thanked Stewart’s family for their “kind words” in a letter he apparently received from them.

 “I’m going to heaven, I’ll see you there when you come,” he said through a microphone held by the warden.

 As his adult children sobbed a few feet away in a witness room, McGuire opened and shut his left hand as if waving to his daughter, son and daughter-in-law.

 More than a minute later he raised himself up, looked in the direction of his family and said, “I love you. I love you” — his words audible even though the microphone had been removed.

 McGuire was still for almost five minutes, then emitted a loud snort, as if snoring, and continued to make that sound over the next several minutes. He also soundlessly opened and shut his mouth several times as his stomach rose and fell.

“Oh my God,” his daughter, Amber McGuire, said as she observed her father’s final moments.%% A coughing sound was Dennis McGuire’s last apparent movement, at 10:43 a.m. He was pronounced dead 10 minutes later.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/dennis-mcguire-executed-in-ohio-with-new-combination-of-lethal-drugs/2014/01/16/612e22a2-7ede-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html