Dennis McGuire's execution on Thursday took 26 minutes from the time the drugs were administered to when he was pronounced dead, according to The Associated Press.

During that time he "gasped, made snorting sounds and repeatedly opened and shut his mouth," according to the report.

McGuire, 53, was sentenced to death in 1989 for the rape and stabbing death of Joy Stewart, 22, who was seven months pregnant.

His execution was the longest in Ohio since it resumed capital punishment 15 years ago, but it was unique for another reason as well. McGuire was given a never-before-tried combination of the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone.

It was unclear whether or not McGuire felt any pain, but his death did follow the prediction of one expert who warned last week that the untested drug cocktail could cause "air hunger" and obstructed breathing.

Ohio used this new combination of drugs because it ran out of the execution drug pentobarbital which is produced overseas, where widespread opposition to the death penalty has led pharmaceutical companies to stop exporting certain drugs that can be used in executions.

McGuire's children, Amber and Dennis McGuire, plan to file a federal lawsuit next week with the help of Attorney Jon Paul Rion, alleging that the execution violated the Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, according to The New York Times.

"We're mainly just hoping that no other family has to go through what we went through yesterday," said Amber McGuire.

But the family of Joy Stewart said in a statement that McGuire's suffering paled in comparison to the woman he raped.

"He is being treated far more humanely than he treated her," the statement said.

Thomas Madden, an Ohio assistant attorney general, persuaded the court to use the new combination of drugs in part by saying that the constitutional protection from cruel and unusual punishment does not mean a person is "entitled to a pain-free execution."

Death penalty states are now experimenting with different combinations of drugs and some are considering other methods of execution.

Missouri state Rep. Rick Brattin (R-Harrisonville) proposed legislation on Friday that would that add five-person firing squads as an alternative to lethal injection, NBC reported. Brattin cited McGuire's drawn out execution as evidence that alternatives were needed.

"I was just looking at a second option, something we could do if we had to utilize the death penalty and we could not administer the lethal injection," Brittan said.

In Wyoming, State Sen. Bruce Burns (R-Sheridan County) also filed a firing squad bill in case the state runs out of lethal injection drugs.

"One of the reasons I chose firing squad, as opposed to any other form of execution, is because frankly, it's one of the cheapest for the state," Burns said.

Wyoming also allows the gas chamber as an alternative execution method, but the state doesn't have a chamber because they are too costly to maintain.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the attorney general in Arkansas has suggested using the electric chair in place of lethal injections.

Another alternative to drugs from overseas could be "compounding pharmacies," which can produce custom batches of drugs, according to The Associated Press.

Concerns over these pharmacies arose in 2012, however, after a contaminated batch of pain injections caused a meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people.

Ohio Department of Corrections spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said Thursday that it will review the execution, but no further comment from the department or from Ohio's Gov. John Kasich was available.

Richard Dieter is the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment. He told NBC that McGuire's execution and his children's lawsuit may influence Ohio's next scheduled execution of a Cleveland-area killer in March.

"This doesn't sound like it was a complete disaster, but they don't want anything that even has the appearance of someone suffering or a delay in death being carried out," Dieter said. "States will now have more of a burden to show that they are using a well thought out best practice."

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