The Gas Chamber.

Between 1930 and 1980, 945 men and seven women were put to death in the gas chambers of various states. 11 states have used lethal gas, these being, Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming. 11 men have been gassed in 5 states since the resumption of executions in 1977, these being in Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, California and Mississippi. The last was Walter LeGrand in Arizona in 1999 (see below). Of the 38 states with capital punishment, only Arizona, California, Maryland, Missouri and Wyoming still allow for the use of lethal gas and all offer lethal injection as an option. Gassing is not used in by other country as a means of judicial execution.

Gassing was originally proposed by Dr. Allen McLean Hamilton who was a toxicologist and who suggested an execution method that would be more humane than hanging or shooting, which were the choices offered to condemned men in Nevada in the early part of the century. Electrocution was also seen as gruesome by the Nevada legislature and so the new method was quickly adopted, coming into law in 1921 in that state. The original idea, was to gas the prisoner in his cell, as he slept, without prior warning. This proved impracticable and thus the gas chamber, as such, was invented by Major Delos A Turner, an army medical corps officer and was first used in 1924.

The first person to die in Nevada's new gas chamber was Chinese born Gee Jong on the 8th February 1924 for the murder Tom Quong Kee, a member of a rival gang. His lawyers had fought a long battle in the courts to show that the gas chamber was a "cruel and unusual punishment" and as such was illegal under the Eight Amendment to the Constitution. The execution commenced at 9.30 a.m. when Gee Jong was led from a holding cell and secured to the chair within the chamber. He appeared to struggle a little after the gas was manually pumped in and then lapse into unconsciousness but as no external stethoscope had been used he was left in the chamber for 30 minutes to ensure death.

It is difficult nowadays to imagine a more cruel, expensive, or dangerous (to the staff and witnesses) method of execution than gassing. The prisoner is expected to contribute to his (or her) own death by actively inhaling the lethal fumes in a mechanism that cost a fortune to buy and is likely to leak deadly fumes if it is not meticulously maintained. Execution by lethal gas requires considerable preparation and always takes several minutes to cause death after the cyanide pellets drop into the acid. The prisoner generally struggles and shows signs of great suffering.

California has executed 192 men and 4 women by gassing at San Quentin prison, between 1938 and 1994. The first gas executions at San Quentin took place at 10.00 a.m. on December 2nd 1938 when Robert Lee Cannon and Albert Kassell were put to death simultaneously for the murder of a prison warden. The cost to the state of this, for the cyanide and acid, was $1.80. Ethel Leta Juanita Spinelli became the first woman to be executed in California and the first woman to die in the gas chamber, when she was executed for murder on November 21, 1941. The California gas chamber at San. Quentin (pictured) is in a basement room and is a pale green painted octagonal metal box, six feet across and eight feet high, built in 1938. There is a 30 feet high chimney outside to take the gas away. The entrance is through a steel door closed by a large locking wheel onto rubber seals. There are windows in five of the sides for the witnesses to view the execution.

Inside the chamber are two identical metal chairs with perforated seats, marked "A" and "B." (The two chairs were last used in a double execution in 1962) Two guards strap the prisoner into chair A, attaching straps across his upper and lower legs, arms, thighs and chest. They will also affix a long Bowles stethoscope to the person's chest so that a doctor on the outside can monitor the heartbeat and pronounce death. Beneath the chair is a bowl filled with sulfuric acid mixed with distilled water, with a pound of sodium cyanide pellets suspended in a gauze bag just above. After the door is sealed and when the warden gives the signal, the executioner, in a separate room, operates a lever that releases the cyanide into the acid. This causes a chemical reaction that releases hydrogen cyanide gas, which rises through the holes in the chair. (2 NaCn + H2SO4 = 2 HCN + Na2SO4)

Prisoners are advised to take deep breaths after the gas is released as this will considerably shorten their suffering. Easy for the Warden to say, no doubt, but much harder for the prisoner to intentionally inhale the gas designed to kill them, even if they accept the logic of the advice they are given.

A typical witnesses' view of gassing is as follows "At first there is evidence of extreme horror, pain and strangling. The eyes pop, the skin turns purple and the prisoner begins to drool". In medical terms, victims of cyanide gas die from hypoxia, which means the cut-off of oxygen to the brain. The initial result of this is spasms, as in an epileptic seizure. Because of the straps, however, involuntary body movements are restrained. Seconds after the prisoner first inhales, he/she will feel himself unable to breathe, but will not lose consciousness immediately. "The person is unquestionably experiencing pain and extreme anxiety," according to Dr. Richard Traystman of John Hopkins University. "The pain begins immediately and is felt in the arms, shoulders, back, and chest. The sensation is similar to the pain felt by a person during a heart attack, where essentially the heart is being deprived of oxygen." "We would not use asphyxiation, by cyanide gas or by any other substance, in our laboratory to kill animals that have been used in experiments."

A study of the execution records of 113 prisoners executed at San Quentin showed that the average time taken to kill them was 9.3 minutes. The prisoner will usually loose consciousness between one and three minutes after the gas hits their face and the doctor will pronounce them dead in around ten to twelve minutes. An exhaust fan then sucks the poison air out of the chamber. The corpse is sprayed with ammonia, which neutralizes traces of the cyanide that may remain. After about half an hour, prison staff enter the chamber, wearing gas masks and rubber gloves. Their training manual advises them to ruffle the victim's hair to release and trapped cyanide gas before removing him.

The end of the gas chamber?

Lethal injection is rapidly becoming the universal method of execution in America although some of the states which previously used the gas chamber, such as Arizona and California, now offer it as an alternative method. On Tuesday, April 21st, 1992, 39 year old Robert Alton Harris was put to death in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison in California's first execution for 25 years. At 6.07. a prison official operated the lever, slowly lowering the pellets of cheesecloth wrapped sodium cyanide into the small vat of sulfuric acid beneath the chair to create the lethal, hydrocyanic gas. Harris took a number of deep breaths and for several minutes appeared to gasp and twitch convulsively. His head snapped back and then dropped as he strained against the straps. After a minute his hands seemed to relax. His mouth was open and his face flushed and turning blue. Three minutes later there was a cough and a convulsion. At 6.21 a.m. (eleven minutes after the start) Warden Daniel Vasquez declared Harris dead and announced the words Harris had chosen to be remembered by. Taken from the film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, they were: "You can be a king or a street sweeper. But everybody dances with the grim reaper."

David Edwin Mason became the next person to suffer death by lethal gas in California. He was executed, in accordance with Procedure No. 762 at San Quentin, on August 24th 1993 for the murders of four elderly women in 1980 and of a fellow inmate in 1982. At 12:05 a.m. Mason was escorted into the chamber. At 12:09 a.m. the lethal gas was introduced into the chamber and Mason was pronounced dead at 12:23 a.m. It looked at the time as though Mason's gassing would be the last but on January 30th 1998 Ricky Sanderson was executed in the gas chamber at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina for stabbing a 16-year old girl to death in 1985. Having been on death row for nearly 13 years 38 year old Sanderson waived his right to further appeals. His last words were "I'm dying for a deed I did and I deserve death for it and I'm glad Christ forgave me." The execution commenced at 2.01 a.m. EST and he was pronounced dead at 2:19 a.m., 18 minutes later. He died in just a pair of white boxer shorts, which is standard procedure, according to prison officials. He was seated in a wooden chair and wearing a leather mask to hide facial contortions.

The last person to be gassed was Walter LeGrand, on March 4th 1999. He was executed in Arizona's gas chamber at his request (apparently as a protest against the death penalty). A week previously his brother Karl had chosen lethal injection.) LaGrand also took 18 minutes to die after his executioners dropped the cyanide pellets into the acid, enveloping him in a cloud of white, steam-like fumes. This was Arizona's first gassing since Donald Eugene Harding in 1992, who's death took 11 minutes and prompted the change to lethal injection.

The cruelty of gassing is well illustrated by the two films based upon the case of Barbara Graham who went to the San Quentin gas chamber on June 3rd 1955 for a murder that many believe she was framed for. Lindsey Wagner played Barbara Graham in the later version of "I Want to Live" and gave a very moving performance. Her portrayal showed clearly the time it takes to prepare the prisoner, get them into the gas chamber and for them to pass into unconsciousness when the gas is finally released.

For reasons of humanity, safety and cost most states have now abandoned gassing. Most of America's gas chambers were built in the 1920's by Eaton Metal Products of Salt Lake City Utah and are all getting very old. The seals have hardened and are liable to leak. Meticulous maintenance of the chamber is therefore vital as a leak could have fatal consequences to staff and witnesses. It is estimated that to build a new gas chamber would cost at least $300,000 and this cannot be justified when set against the cost of the equipment required for lethal injection.

Wyoming has the old gas chamber from its Rawlins Prison on display and the public are invited to sit in it and even be strapped in and have the door closed on them! Arguably the cruelest method of execution, the gas chamber has now been outlawed, at least in California, after the American Civil Liberties Union took the California Department of Corrections to court in San Francisco in 1994 on behalf of 375 condemned inmates on San Quentin's death row, saying that the gas chamber violates the U.S. Constitution's ban against cruel and unusual punishment because it inflicts needless pain and suffering. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled on October 5th 1994 that the gas chamber is an inhumane method of punishment and thus outlawed the practice in California. On February 21st 1996 a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the her ruling that gas chamber executions in California violated the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution because there was a risk that an inmate could suffer "horrible pain" for up to several minutes. "The district court's findings of extreme pain, the length of time this extreme pain lasts, and the substantial risk that inmates will suffer this extreme pain for several minutes require the conclusion that execution by lethal gas is cruel and unusual," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote. "This decision is the death knell for the gas chamber in the United States," predicted Michael Laurence, an attorney who fought to stop the use of the gas chamber.

Only time will tell will tell whether the gas chamber will survive into the 21st century. It may because there are a substantial number of prisoners on death row who have the legal right to insist upon being gassed (as Walter LeGrand did in 1999) Strangely gassing is seen as humane and an acceptable method of execution by a substantial number of women under 25 who responded to my survey. I have no idea why this should be.

The only other users of execution by lethal gas were, of course, the Nazis during World War 2 when they killed several million people using carbon monoxide or cyanide gas.

Hardly a recommendation!

Botched Gassings

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