“The family of a prisoner who was executed in Ohio on Thursday using an untested combination of medical drugs that appeared to cause him prolonged distress are planning to sue the state for inflicting cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the US constitution. Dennis McGuire, 53, was put to death using an untested two-drug protocol involving the sedative midazolam and painkiller hydromorphone. Before the execution, which took an abnormally long 25 minutes, Ohio courts were warned by an anaesthesiologist who served as an expert witness for McGuire that the procedure and the doses of drugs to be used would inflict untold suffering upon the inmate.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/17/dennis-mcguire-ohio-execution-untested-method-lawsuit