The world’s anti-death penalty activists really outdid themselves last week. And shameless as they are, they show no signs of abating. And their star is Dennis McGuire, deceased.

Here’s the popular account of the execution of Mr. McGuire: The experimental drug cocktail administered him by the state of Ohio didn’t work as quickly or painlessly as planned, and it took the condemned 26 unhappy minutes to meet his maker — or about 11 minutes longer than the average Ohio execution takes.

Now, all of this is fact, but as with most matters of life and death — especially those matters where the left has skin in the game, so to say — the truth is something more, and the popular narrative quickly presents two important questions: Who was Mr. McGuire, and why was the prison experimenting with a new execution cocktail?

In January 2014, Mr. McGuire was a 53-year old man on death row. But in February 1989, he was a young man who murdered Joy Stewart. And who is Mrs. Stewart? She was a 22-year old newlywed pregnant woman who would have given birth to a child in just two months if Mr. McGuire hadn’t raped her in a particularly horrific way, stabbed her, slit her throat and left her to rot in the woods.

Yes, the same Mr. McGuire whose 26 minutes of pain are cause for Ohio to re-evaluate its values, we’re told.

And speaking of 26 minutes, why did it take so long? Why was the traditional three-drug painkiller and sedative cocktail unavailable to the people of Ohio? Because one American company stopped manufacturing its drug three years ago for fear of liability in lawsuits over executions. And because later that year, the European Union banned European manufacturers from exporting drugs to the United States that are to be used to execute men like Mr. McGuire. With their stockpiles aging and a number of major sources now closed to them, authorities have been forced to use two-drug cocktails for executions.

Meaning that the anti-death penalty activists have created a situation in which capital punishment is currently more difficult to carry out efficiently, and then used these less-efficient executions to justify their continued quest to ban the death penalty for the men and women the people have condemned for the most heinous crimes society knows.

So where are we now?

Mr. McGuire’s adult daughter, Amber, called the execution “torture,” and is now suing the state.

Mrs. Stewart’s husband, Kenny, committed suicide shortly after his wife and child were murdered, and is now dead.

The majority of Americans are safely in their homes or at their jobs in a country where our worst criminals still face justice.

And the the smallest violin is playing a sad song for Mr. McGuire and his defenders.

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