Foes of executions re-energized

Two years ago, the Rev. Georgina Thornton witnessed something she hopes to never see again. 

The pastor from Grace AME Church in the northeastern Ohio city of Warren watched the state execute Death Row inmate Darryl Durr. He reacted to the lethal-injection drug used at the time by raising his head and shoulders and grimacing before his head fell back, his eyes closed, his chest heaved and his throat convulsed.

“It just destroyed me,” said Thornton, who sobbed for several minutes after watching Durr die. “It was a very, very, very hard thing to witness, and I hope I never have to do it again.”

Many fellow members of faith communities in Ohio also pray that Thornton — and anyone else —will never again watch the state put an inmate to death.

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