Gas Chambers
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A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a
poison A poison is any chemical substance that is harmful or lethal to living organisms. The term is used in a wide range of scientific fields and industries, where it is often specifically defined. It may also be applied colloquially or figurati ...
ous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include
hydrogen cyanide Hydrogen cyanide (formerly known as prussic acid) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula, formula HCN and structural formula . It is a highly toxic and flammable liquid that boiling, boils slightly above room temperature, at . HCN is ...
and
carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a poisonous, flammable gas that is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the si ...
.


History

General Rochambeau developed a rudimentary method in 1803, during the
Haitian Revolution The Haitian Revolution ( or ; ) was a successful insurrection by slave revolt, self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolution was the only known Slave rebellion, slave up ...
, filling ships' cargo holds with
sulfur dioxide Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a colorless gas with a pungent smell that is responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is r ...
to suffocate prisoners of war. The scale of these operations was brought to larger public attention in the book '' Napoleon's Crimes'' (2005), although the allegations of scale and sources were heavily questioned. In America, the utilization of a gas chamber was first proposed by Allan McLane Hamilton to the state of Nevada. Since then, gas chambers have been used as a method of execution of condemned prisoners in the United States and continue to be a legal execution method in three states, seeing legislated reintroduction with inert N2, although redundant in practice since the early 1990s.
Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
used gas chambers for civilian, penal use in the 1930s, with the last known execution carried out in 1940. The
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
allegedly used the method to perform executions during the
Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...
, including by use of gas vans. Prisoners were gassed on the way to the Butovo firing range, where the
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
normally executed its prisoners by shooting them.Tomasz Kizny, Dominique Roynette. ''La grande terreur en URSS 1937–1938''. Lausanne: Éd. Noir sur Blanc, 2013, p. 236. None of these saw mass use, however, and were strictly for "criminal" purposes. Most notably, during
the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing were used by
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
from the late 1930s, as part of the '' Aktion T4'', and later for its
genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
program. More recently, escapees from
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...
have alleged executions to have been performed by gas chamber in prison camps, often combined with medical experimentation.


Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
made extensive use of various types of gas chambers for mass-murder during
the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
. Beginning in 1939, gas chambers were used as part of '' Aktion T4'', an " involuntary euthanasia" program under which the Nazis murdered people with physical and intellectual disabilities, whom the Nazis considered "unworthy of life". Experiments in the gassing of patients were conducted in October 1939 in occupied
Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...
in Poland. Hundreds of prisoners were murdered by
carbon monoxide poisoning Carbon monoxide poisoning typically occurs from breathing in carbon monoxide (CO) at excessive levels. Symptoms are often described as " flu-like" and commonly include headache, dizziness, weakness, vomiting, chest pain, and confusion. Large ...
in an improvised gas chamber. In 1940, gas chambers using bottled pure carbon monoxide were established at six killing centres in Germany. In addition to persons with disabilities, these centres were also used during Action 14f13 to murder prisoners transferred from concentration camps in Germany, Austria, and Poland. Concentration camp inmates continued to be murdered even after the euthanasia program was officially shut down in 1941. During the invasion of the Soviet Union, mass executions by exhaust gas were performed by '' Einsatzgruppen'' using gas vans, trucks modified to divert engine exhaust into a sealed interior gas chamber. Starting in 1941, gas chambers were used at extermination camps in Poland for the mass-murder of
Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
, Roma, and other victims of
the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
. Gas vans were used at the Chełmno extermination camp. The
Operation Reinhard Operation Reinhard or Operation Reinhardt ( or ; also or ) was the codename of the secret Nazi Germany, German plan in World War II to exterminate History of the Jews in Poland, Polish Jews in the General Government district of German-occupied ...
extermination camps at
Bełżec Belzec (English: or , Polish: , approximately ) was a Nazi German extermination camp in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland. It was built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to ...
, Sobibór, and Treblinka used exhaust fumes from stationary
diesel engine The diesel engine, named after the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which Combustion, ignition of diesel fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to Mechanics, mechanical Compr ...
s. In search of more efficient killing methods, the Nazis experimented with using the
hydrogen cyanide Hydrogen cyanide (formerly known as prussic acid) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula, formula HCN and structural formula . It is a highly toxic and flammable liquid that boiling, boils slightly above room temperature, at . HCN is ...
-based fumigant Zyklon B at the
Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...
. This method was adopted for mass-murder at the Auschwitz and Majdanek camps. Up to 6,000 victims were gassed with Zyklon B each day at Auschwitz. Most extermination camp gas chambers were dismantled or destroyed in the last months of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
as
Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
troops approached, except for those at Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Majdanek. One destroyed gas chamber at Auschwitz was reconstructed after the war to stand as a memorial.


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 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.


Lithuania

In 1937–1940,
Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
operated a gas chamber in Aleksotas within the First Fort of the Kaunas Fortress. Previous executions were carried out by hanging or by shooting. However, these methods were viewed as brutal and in January 1937, the criminal code was amended to provide execution by gas which at the time was viewed as more civilized and humane. Lithuania considered and rejected execution by poison. Unlike the American or German model the Lithuanian gas chamber, built out of bricks, worked by inputting compressed lethal gas from an external storage cylinder (Černevičiūtė 2014). The first execution was carried on July 27, 1937: Bronius Pogužinskas, age 37, convicted of murder of five people from a Jewish family. Historian Sigita Černevičiūtė counted at least nine executions in the gas chamber, though records are incomplete and fragmentary. Of the nine, eight were convicted of murder. One of these, Aleksandras Maurušaitis, was also convicted of anti-government actions during the 1935 Suvalkija strike. The last known execution took place on May 19, 1940, for robbery. The fate of the gas chamber after the occupation by the Soviet Union in June 1940 is unclear.


Soviet Union

The invention of mobile gas chambers, based on adapted vans with the storage compartment sealed and exhaust redirected inside, was attributed to Soviet
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
officer Isai D. Berg. Starting in 1937, he supervised execution of prisoners by gassing them in trucks.Catherine Merridale. ''Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia''.
Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
, 2002 p. 200
Timothy J. Colton. ''Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis''.
Belknap Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...
, 1998.
p. 286Е. Жирнов. «По пути следования к месту исполнения приговоров отравлялись газом». Коммерсантъ Власть, № 44, 2007.
/ref> Providing testimony of this when he was himself arrested by the NKVD in August 1938,
Alexander Lipkov, Kontinent, N 123, 2005.
Berg stated that he and a team of secret police officers suffocated batches of prisoners with engine fumes in camouflaged cars while transporting them from the Taganka or Butyrka prisons in Moscow Nikita Petrov
Н. Петров. «Человек в кожаном фартуке»
'' Novaya Gazeta'' (ru:Новая газета, спецвыпуск «Правда ГУЛАГа» от 02.08.2010 № 10 (31)) .
to the mass graves at the Butovo firing range, where the prisoners were subsequently buried. Examining documents related to Berg, '' Kommersant'' reported that Berg had led of the administrative and economic department of the
Moscow Oblast Moscow Oblast (, , informally known as , ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). With a population of 8,524,665 (Russian Census (2021), 2021 Census) living in an area of , it is one of the most densely populate ...
NKVD; Berg stated that he acted on orders from the higher NKVD administration. On the way to the place of their execution, the convicts were poisoned with gas (Russian)
by Yevgeniy Zhirnov, Kommersant
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...
Two Hundred Years Together (Двести лет вместе), volume=2, Москва, Русский путь, 2002, , p. 297 According to
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...
, "I. D. Berg was ordered to carry out the orders of the NKVD troika of the Moscow Oblast, and he was decently carrying out this assignment: he was driving people to the executions by shooting. But, when he arrived at the Moscow Oblast, three troikas were carrying out their sessions simultaneously, the executioners could not cope with the load. They hit upon a solution: to strip the victims naked, tie them up, plug their mouths and throw them into a closed truck which was disguised as a bread van from the outside. During their transportation the fuel gases came into the truck, and when they were delivered to the farthest xecutionditch the arrestees were already dead."
Gas vans were also reportedly used in other parts of the Soviet Union. According to high-ranking NKVD officer Mikhail Schreder, they were used in the city of
Ivanovo Ivanovo (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Russia and the administrative center and largest city of Ivanovo Oblast, located northeast of Moscow and approximately from Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Russia, Vladimir and Kostroma. ...
similar to that in Moscow: "When a closed truck arrived at the place of execution, all convicts were dragged out of cars in an unconscious state. On the way, they were almost killed by exhaust fumes redirected through a special tube into the closed cargo compartment of the truck." Soviet dissident Petro Grigorenko described in his memoirs a story told by his close friend and former prisoner of Gulag Vasil Teslia. He described killings of "
kulak Kulak ( ; rus, кула́к, r=kulák, p=kʊˈɫak, a=Ru-кулак.ogg; plural: кулаки́, ''kulakí'', 'fist' or 'tight-fisted'), also kurkul () or golchomag (, plural: ), was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned over ...
s" in a prison in
Omsk Omsk (; , ) is the administrative center and largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia and has a population of over one million. Omsk is the third List of cities and tow ...
. According to him, more than 27 people were loaded to a truck, which moved away from the prison, but soon returned back. "When the doors were opened, black smoke poured out and corpses of people rained down." The corpses were then placed into the basement. Teslia watched such executions during whole week.


United States

Gas chambers have been used for capital punishment in the United States to execute death row inmates. 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 Jon's death sentence. On December 3, 1948, Miran Thompson and Sam Shockley were executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison for their role in the Battle of Alcatraz. 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, 11 executions by gas chamber have been conducted. Four were conducted in
Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...
, 2 in
Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
, 2 in
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
, 2 in
North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
, and 1 in
Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...
. The first execution via gas chamber since the restoration of the death penalty was in Nevada in 1979, when Jesse Bishop was executed for murder. The most recent execution via gas chamber was in 1999. 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 Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...
, officials cleared the viewing room after 8 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. In 2007, 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 Eugene Harding in
Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
, 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 to death after November 1992 would be executed by lethal injection. Following the execution of Robert Alton Harris in 1992, a federal court declared that "execution by lethal gas under the California protocol is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual." However, this decision was vacated after California amended its statute to allow death row inmates to choose between lethal injection and the gas chamber. 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 2020, 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 Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
on March 3, 1999. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had ruled that he could not be executed by gas chamber, but the decision was overturned by the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
. The gas chamber was formerly used in
Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
,
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...
,
Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...
,
New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
,
North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
and
Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...
. Seven states (Alabama, Arizona, California, Mississippi,
Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
, Oklahoma, and
Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...
) 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. Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma specify the nitrogen hypoxia method, Arizona specifies the hydrogen cyanide method, and the other states do not specify the type of gas. In October 2010,
Governor of New York The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The 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

The hydrogen cyanide gas chamber is considered to be the most dangerous, most complicated, most time-consuming and most expensive method of administering the death penalty. It is also notoriously impossible to halt once initiated, which has occurred in the case of stays, such as in the case of Burton Abbott. The same event supposedly occurred in the final, completed execution of Caryl Chessman in 1960. The condemned person is strapped into a chair within an airtight chamber, which is then sealed. The executioner activates a mechanism which drops potassium cyanide (or sodium cyanide) pellets into a bath of
sulfuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, ...
beneath the chair; the ensuing chemical reaction generates lethal
hydrogen cyanide Hydrogen cyanide (formerly known as prussic acid) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula, formula HCN and structural formula . It is a highly toxic and flammable liquid that boiling, boils slightly above room temperature, at . HCN is ...
gas. : (X is an
alkali metal The alkali metals consist of the chemical elements lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K),The symbols Na and K for sodium and potassium are derived from their Latin names, ''natrium'' and ''kalium''; these are still the origins of the names ...
ion) The condemned is advised to take several deep breaths to speed unconsciousness. Nonetheless, the condemned person often convulses and drools and may also urinate, defecate, and vomit. Following the execution the chamber is purged with air, and any remnant gas is neutralized with anhydrous ammonia, after which the body can be removed (with great caution, as pockets of gas can be trapped in the victim's clothing).


Excluding all oxygen

Nitrogen gas or oxygen-depleted air has been considered for human execution, as it can induce nitrogen asphyxiation. The victim detects little abnormal sensation as the oxygen level falls. This leads to asphyxiation (death from lack of oxygen) without the painful and traumatic feeling of suffocation, or the side effects of poisoning. In April 2015, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin approved a bill allowing nitrogen asphyxiation as an execution method. On March 14, 2018, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter and Corrections Director Joe M. Allbaugh announced a switch to nitrogen gas as the state's primary method of execution. After struggling for years to design a nitrogen execution protocol, the State of Oklahoma announced in February 2020 that it was abandoning the project after finding a reliable source of drugs to carry out the lethal injection executions. In 2018, Alabama approved nitrogen asphyxiation as an execution method and allowed death row inmates a choice of method. In September 2022, a court stayed the execution of Alan Eugene Miller, who was set to be executed by lethal injection. Miller asserted that he had chosen nitrogen hypoxia as his method of execution, as permitted by Alabama law, but the form documenting his choice had been lost. The court decided to stay the execution to allow for further investigation into his claim. On January 25, 2024, Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person to be executed by nitrogen asphyxiation.


Further reading

* Christianson, Scott (2010). ''The Last Gasp: The rise and fall of the American gas chamber'' (Kindle edition). Berkeley:
University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
,


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gas Chamber 1803 introductions Infrastructure of the Holocaust Execution methods Execution equipment Toxicology Aktion T4