The family of Dennis McGuire will file a federal lawsuit against the state of Ohio over histroubled execution yesterday.

Amber and Dennis McGuire, the executed man’s children, scheduled a press conference thismorning in Dayton to announce their intention to go to court. The suit will claim McGuire’s 8thAmendment rights under the U.S. Constitution to avoid “cruel and unusual punishment” were violatedwhen he gasped for air, choked and struggled against his restraints for about 10 minutes beforebeing declared dead at 10:53 a.m.

“Shortly after the warden buttoned his jacket to signal the start of the execution, my dadbegan gasping and struggling to breathe,” Amber McGuire said in a statement. “I watched his stomachheave. I watched him try to sit up against the straps on the gurney. I watched him repeatedlyclench his fist. It appeared to me he was fighting for his life but suffocating.”

McGuire’s children were witnesses at his lethal injection at the Southern Ohio CorrectionalFacility near Dayton.

McGuire, 53, was executed for the brutal 1989 murder of Joy Stewart, 22, who was newlymarried and 30 weeks pregnant at the time of her death. McGuire raped Stewart vaginally and anally,choked her, stabbed her in the chest, and slit her throat. He dumped her body in the woods nearEaton, Ohio, where it was found the next day by two hikers.

There was no clear…