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.

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.�

Lowe also reportedly told the condemned man that if things went wrong, the governor could step in to stop the execution, and that an �antidote� drug would be injected to �counter the drugs and he would be all right.�

Informed there was no such antidote, and that once the lethal drugs were injected the process could not be stopped, McGuire became upset, the report said.

He angrily rejected Lowe�s request to be allowed to witness the execution. �He (Lowe) wants me to put on this big show in front of my kids all right when I�m dying. I ain�t gonna do this. It�s about me and my kids, not him and his cause.�

Nevertheless, McGuire gave a brief �thumbs up� as he looked toward his family members before turning his head away and apparently losing consciousness. (The Dispatch was a witness of the execution.)

Minutes later, he repeatedly gasped for air, snorted, choked and clenched his fists before succumbing to a lethal two-drug combination that had not previously been used in a U.S. execution. McGuire�s struggles did not begin immediately but occurred several minutes after the chemicals began flowing into his veins.

Young sent a memo to his staff about six hours after McGuire�s execution, indicating that he had been contacted by Gov. John Kasich�s legal counsel about the allegations.

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.

Amber and Dennis McGuire, the executed man�s children, who witnessed the execution, filed a lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court claiming their father�s constitutional rights were violated because the two-drug lethal injection triggered a reaction that amounted to �cruel and unusual punishment.� The lawsuit also goes after Hospira Inc., the Chicago drug manufacturer.

McGuire was executed for the 1989 murder of Joy Stewart, 22, who was newly married and 30 weeks pregnant at the time of her death. McGuire raped Stewart, choked her, stabbed her in the chest and slit her throat. He dumped her body in the woods near Eaton, where it was found the next day by two hikers.

ajohnson@dispatch.com

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