On
this date, 6 April 2013, Donald Harding was executed by the gas chamber in
Arizona. He was convicted for the 25 January 1980 murders of Robert Wise and
Martin Concannon. He was executed in 1992 by the state of Arizona by gas
chamber. He became the first person to be executed in Arizona since 1976 when
the death penalty was reinstated. I chose the gas chamber as the weapon of the
fortnight, as he was executed on this date. As usual, the information is from
Wikipedia. Please see former Arizona Attorney General, Grant Woods’s article.
 |
|
Executions in California were carried out in
the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison. It was modified for the use of
lethal injection, but has been returned to its original designated purpose,
with the creation of a new chamber specifically for lethal injection.
|
A
gas chamber is an apparatus for
killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a
poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous
agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been
used. Gas chambers were used as a method of execution for condemned prisoners
in the United States beginning in the 1920s. During the Holocaust, large-scale
gas chambers designed for mass killing were used by Nazi Germany as part of
their genocide program, and also by the Independent State of Croatia at the Jasenovac
concentration camp. The use of gas chambers has also been reported in North
Korea.
 |
|
The former gas chamber in New Mexico State
Penitentiary, used only once in 1960 and later replaced by lethal injection.
|
United States
Gas
chambers have been used for capital punishment in the United States to execute criminals,
especially convicted murderers. The first person to be executed in the United
States by lethal gas was Gee Jon, on February 8, 1924. An unsuccessful attempt
to pump poison gas directly into his cell at Nevada State Prison led to the
development of the first makeshift gas chamber to carry out Gee's death
sentence. In 1957, Burton Abbott was executed as the governor of California, Goodwin
J. Knight, was on the telephone to stay the execution. Since the restoration of
the death penalty in the United States in 1976, eleven executions by gas
chamber have been conducted. By the 1980s, reports of suffering during gas
chamber executions had led to controversy over the use of this method.
At
the September 2, 1983, execution of Jimmy Lee Gray in Mississippi, officials
cleared the viewing room after eight minutes while Gray was still alive and
gasping for air. The decision to clear the room while he was still alive was
criticized by his attorney. David Bruck, an attorney specializing in death
penalty cases, said, "Jimmy Lee Gray died banging his head against a steel
pole in the gas chamber while reporters counted his moans."
During
the April 6, 1992, execution of Donald Harding in Arizona, it took 11 minutes
for death to occur. The prison warden stated that he would quit if required to
conduct another gas chamber execution. Following Harding's execution, Arizona
voted that all persons condemned after November 1992 would be executed by
lethal injection.
Following
the execution of Robert Alton Harris,
a federal court declared that "execution by lethal gas under the California
protocol is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual." By the late 20th
century, most states had switched to methods considered to be more humane, such
as lethal injection. California's gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison was
converted to an execution chamber for lethal injection.
As
of 2010, the last person to be executed in the gas chamber was German national Walter
LaGrand, sentenced to death before 1992, who was executed in Arizona on March
3, 1999. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that he could not be
executed by gas chamber, but the decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme
Court. The gas chamber was formerly used in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, North
Carolina and Oregon. Six states, Arizona, California, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri
and Wyoming, authorize lethal gas if lethal injection cannot be administered,
the condemned committed their crime before a certain date, or the condemned
chooses to die in the gas chamber. In October 2010, New York governor David
Paterson signed a bill rendering gas chambers illegal for use by humane
societies and other animal shelters.
Method of use
Using hydrogen cyanide
When executions by gas chambers are conducted in
the United States, the general protocol is as follows. First, the executioner
will place a quantity of potassium cyanide (KCN) pellets into a compartment
directly below the chair in the chamber. The condemned person is then brought
into the chamber and strapped into the chair, and the airtight chamber is
sealed. At this point the executioner will pour a quantity of concentrated sulfuric
acid (H2SO4) down a tube that leads to a small holding
tank directly below the compartment containing the cyanide pellets. The curtain
is then opened, allowing the witnesses to observe the inside of the chamber.
The prison warden then asks the condemned individual if he or she wishes to
make a final statement. Following this, the executioner(s) throws a
switch/lever to cause the cyanide pellets to drop into the sulfuric acid,
initiating a chemical reaction that generates hydrogen cyanide (HCN) gas:
The gas is visible to the condemned, and he/she is
advised to take several deep breaths to speed unconsciousness in order to
prevent unnecessary suffering. Accordingly, execution by gas chamber is
especially unpleasant for the witnesses to the execution due to the physical
responses exhibited by the condemned during the process of dying. These
responses can be violent, and can include convulsions and excessive drooling.
Following the execution, the chamber is purged of
the gas through special scrubbers, and must be neutralized with anhydrous
ammonia (NH3) before it can be opened. Guards wearing oxygen masks
remove the body from the chamber. Finally, the prison doctor examines the
individual in order to officially declare that he or she is dead and release
the body to the next of kin.
One of the problems with the gas chamber is the
inherent danger of dealing with such a toxic gas. Anhydrous ammonia is used to
cleanse the chamber after cyanide gas has been used:
The anhydrous ammonia used to clean the chamber
afterwards, and the contaminated acid that must be drained and disposed of, are
both very poisonous.
Excluding all oxygen
Nitrogen gas or oxygen-depleted air has been
considered for human execution, as it can induce nitrogen
asphyxiation. It has not been used to date.
Nazi Germany
See
also: Extermination camp
Gas chambers were used in the Third Reich as part
of the "public euthanasia program" aimed at eliminating physically
and mentally retarded people and political undesirables in the 1930s and 1940s.
In June 1942 many hundreds of prisoners of Neuengamme concentration camp,
amongst which 45 Dutch communists, were gassed in Bernburg. At that time, the
preferred gas was carbon monoxide, often provided by the exhaust gas of
gasoline-powered cars, trucks or army tanks.
Some Nazi extermination camps including Auschwitz
used hydrogen cyanide in the form of Zyklon B.
During the Holocaust, gas chambers were designed to
accept large groups as part of the Nazi policy of genocide against the Jews.
Nazis also targeted the Romani people, homosexuals, physically and mentally
disabled, intellectuals and the clergy. According to Nizkor Project (Hebrew: נִזְכּוֹר), on September 3, 1941, 600 Soviet
POWs were gassed with Zyklon B at Auschwitz camp I; this was the first
experiment with the gas at Auschwitz. According to a website run by Jürgen
Langowski, an anti-Nazi German activist, Carbon monoxide was also used in large
purpose-built gas chambers, like chambers in Treblinka extermination camp. The
gas was in exhaust gas from internal combustion engines (detailed in the Gerstein Report).
Gas chambers in vans, concentration camps, and extermination
camps were used to kill several million people between 1941 and 1945. Some
stationary gas chambers could kill 2,000 people at once. The use of gas
chambers during the Holocaust was attested to by several sources including the Vrba-Wetzler report
and testimony from Rudolf Höss, Commandant of the Auschwitz
concentration camp, and other German soldiers.
The gas chambers were dismantled or destroyed when Soviet
troops got close, except at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Majdanek. The gas
chamber at Auschwitz I was reconstructed after the war as a memorial, but
without a door in its doorway and without the wall that originally separated
the gas chamber from a washroom. The door that had been added when the gas chamber
was converted into an air raid shelter was left intact.
 |
|
Interior of Majdanek gas chamber, showing
Prussian blue residue
|
 |
|
Gas
chamber at the Stutthof concentration camp.
|
Gaswagen
Main article: Gas van
Execution by exhaust gas was performed in specially
modified vans, known as gaswagen (variously translated as "gas
wagon", "gas van", or "gas car").
North Korea
Kwon
Hyok, a former head of security at Camp 22,
described laboratories equipped with gas chambers for suffocation gas
experiments, in which three or four people, normally a family, are the
experimental subjects. After undergoing medical checks, the chambers are sealed
and poison is injected through a tube, while scientists observe from above
through glass. In a report reminiscent of an earlier account of a family of
seven, Kwon claims to have watched one family of two parents, a son and a
daughter die from suffocating gas, with the parents trying to save the children
using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for as long as they had the strength. Kwon's
testimony was supported by documents from Camp 22 describing the transfer of
prisoners designated for the experiments. The documents were identified as
genuine by Kim Sang Hun, a London based expert on Korea and human rights
activist. A press conference in Pyongyang, organized by North Korean
authorities, denounced this.
Napoleonic France
Main article: Napoleon's
Crimes: A Blueprint for Hitler
In his book, Le Crime de Napoléon, French historian
Claude Ribbe has claimed that in the early 19th century, Napoleon used poison
gas to put down slave rebellions in Haiti and Guadeloupe. Based on accounts left by French
officers, he alleges that enclosed spaces including the holds of ships were
used as makeshift gas chambers where sulfur dioxide gas (probably generated by
burning sulphur, which would have been readily available from volcanoes in the
area) was used to execute up to 100,000 rebellious slaves. These claims remain
controversial.
Livestock
Main
article: Controlled
atmosphere killing
Gas
chambers have also been used for animal euthanasia, using carbon monoxide as
the lethal agent. Sometimes a box filled with anesthetic gas is used to
anesthetize small animals for surgery or euthanasia.
No comments:
Post a Comment