Gee Jon

Gee Jon (; 1895 – February 8, 1924) was a Chinese national who was the first person in the United States to be executed by lethal gas. A member of the Hip Sing Tong criminal society from San Francisco, California, Gee was sentenced to death for the murder of Tom Quong Kee, who was a member of the rivaling Bing Kung Tong in Mina, Nevada. An unsuccessful attempt to pump poison gas directly into his cell at Nevada State Prison led to the development of the gas chamber.

Background

Gee Jon was born around 1895 in Canton to a Cantonese family. He immigrated to the United States between 1907 and 1908. He spent most of his life at San Francisco's Chinatown in California, though he was recorded as having briefly lived in the Chinatown area of Stockton. Gee became a member of the Hip Sing Tong society, which dealt in narcotics and liquor. In 1922, territorial disputes with the Bing Kong Tong society led to the outbreak of hostilities.

Murder of Tom Quong Kee

Gee Jon was ordered by Hip Sing officials to perform a gang hit on 74-year-old Chinese laundry proprietor Tom Quong Kee ( zh, t=譚光基, j=taam4 gwong1 gei1, p=Tán Guāngjī), a nominal member of the Bing Kong Tong, as well as the Four Brothers tong. Hughie Sing, a 19-year-old from Carson City, newly recruited to the Hip Sing Tong and Gee's apprentice of two months, pointed Tom out as a target. They traveled to Mina from Reno on the 18th or 20th of August, reportedly being seen by deputy sheriff W. J. Hammill asking about work at the local Palace Café. By then Hammill had heard rumors that the men he had seen were Tong members in town to kill Tom Quong Kee and were pretending to be job-seekers on their way to Tonopah as a cover.

On the night of August 27, 1921, Gee and Sing knocked on the door of Tom's cabin, the former armed with a .38 caliber Colt revolver. When Tom answered the door in his pajamas, Gee, who was standing behind Sing, killed the elderly man with two shots to the heart. Tom's body was discovered the next morning by one of his friends, reporting his find to justice of the peace L. E. Cornelius, who in turn alerted Hammill. After finding two sets of footprints at the crime scene, Hammill made a possible link to the presence of two strangers he had seen the week before. Gee and Sing were apprehended the same day in Reno after Hammill phoned chief of police John Kirkley about two possible murder suspects driving back from Mina. Their arrests were considered unusual, as other Tong killings typically went unsolved, with at least three additional murders with suspected Tong involvement being reported by the end of August. During interrogation, Sing confessed to his role in the murder and implicated Gee as the one to fire the fatal shots, under the belief that this would lead to his immediate release from custody.

Trial and sentencing

Gee and Sing were defended by attorneys James M. Frame and Fiore Raffetto. Sing recanted his confession and entered a not guilty plea along with Gee. In February 1922, both were convicted and sentenced to death in the District Court of Mineral County, Nevada. A bill authorizing the use of lethal gas had passed the Nevada State Legislature in 1921, making Gee and Sing eligible to become the first people to be executed by this method.

On January 25, 1924, Sing's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because he was only nineteen years old and Gee had been the one to commit the shooting, also highlighting that unlike Gee, who was described as "an illiterate Chinese unacquainted with American customs", Sing had been born in the United States, was educated at a bilingual grammar school and had cooperated with the authorities; he was released on parole in 1938. Frame argued that Gee's sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment, but his appeal was denied. The Supreme Court of Nevada instead complimented the state legislators for "inflicting the death penalty in the most humane manner known to modern science". Raffetto unsuccessfully filed a writ of certiorari with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Gee was incarcerated in Nevada State Prison at Carson City and initially intended to be gassed alongside another murderer, Mexican national Thomas Russell, whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment a day before the execution date.

Death

Preparation

The California Cyanide Company of Los Angeles, California, was the only distributor of liquid cyanide in the western United States and refused to deliver it to Carson City over liability concerns. The poison was used to eradicate pests from citrus groves in California. Warden Denver S. Dickerson sent his assistant Tom Pickett to Los Angeles to personally pick up of lethal gas, which was contained in a mobile fumigating unit that cost $700. Four guards who did not want to participate in the process had resigned. The officials first attempted to pump poison gas directly into Gee's cell while he was sleeping, but without success because the gas leaked from the cell. A makeshift gas chamber was set up at the butcher shop of the prison, measuring eleven feet long, ten feet wide, and eight feet high. A small window next to the wooden chair allowed witnesses to look inside. A day before the execution, two cats were used to test the lethal effectiveness of the chamber. It was declared that the animals "died apparently instantly and without pain" in 15 seconds.

Execution

Gee Jon was executed in the morning hours of February 8, 1924. The prior evening, Gee had a final visitation with two friends and a cousin, and made his last statement to a journalist, calling "gas all the same as rope or shoot'em gun" and had "no worry". Gee, who had fasted for ten days before his execution date and weighed only 90 pounds (40.9 kg) at this point, agreed to have a last meal, consisting of ham, eggs, toast, and a cup of coffee. A guard transporting Gee to the gas chamber reportedly muttered "Die like a man, Jon" to the inmate as he was tied onto a metal bench while the cyanide was being prepared. Gee wept as he was strapped into the chair until the captain of the guards told him to "Brace up!" Around a dozen attendees, including news reporters, public health officials, and representatives of the U.S. Army, served as witnesses to the execution, many of whom smoked cigarettes before and during the execution, believing that tobacco smoke would act "as protection against vagrant gas fumes that might drift their way".

At 9:40 a.m. the pump sprayed of hydrocyanic acid into the chamber. The weather was cold and humid. Because an electric heater failed, the chamber was instead of the ideal , causing some of the acid to form a puddle on the floor. Gee turned his head to look for the source of the noise, then appeared to lose consciousness in about five seconds, with his head continuing to nod up and down for six minutes. During this time, an attending physician had declared Gee dead and encouraged attendees to examine him closely through the glass, only for Gee to jerk his head up again. He was completely motionless after ten minutes. Some of the witnesses momentarily thought they smelled the odor of almond blossoms, thought to be the odor of cyanide, leaking from the chamber. The warden had the witnesses cleared from the area. At about 10:00 a.m., a vent was opened, and a fan was turned on to discharge the poison gas. The prison staff waited for the remaining puddle of hydrocyanic acid to evaporate before cleaning up the chamber. Gee's body was removed from the chamber at 12:20 p.m. and taken to the prison hospital. A group of seven doctors pronounced him dead but did not conduct an autopsy on the body out of concern that some remaining gas could be released. Gee was 29 years old when he died and his body was buried at the Carson City Penitentiary cemetery.

Just after the execution, one of the physicians who examined Gee's body, Dr. Delos A. Turner, a Major of the U.S. Veterans' Bureau in Reno, asked for permission to perform medical experiments "in the interests of science." Turner wanted to inject Gee's corpse with camphor believing that it would bring Gee back to life. Dickerson denied the request. Another physician professed his belief that Gee had not died by gas inhalation but due to "cold and exposure". The disputed cause of death also caused concern for residents of Mineral County, some of whom feared that Gee "went to his grave in a state of suspended animation" and would haunt the area as a vengeful spectre.

Reaction

Newspapers reported overwhelmingly positive on the new execution method, citing witnesses who described Gee's death as painless by their own judgement. The '' Nevada State Journal'' proclaimed, "Nevada's novel death law is upheld by the highest court—humanity." However, the ''San Jose Mercury News'' printed, "One hundred years from now Nevada will be referred to as a heathen commonwealth controlled by savages with only the outward symbols of civilization."

Warden Dickerson reported to Nevada governor James G. Scrugham and the legislature his opinion that the use of lethal gas was impractical and that he thought execution by firing squad was still the best method of execution.

See also

* Capital punishment in Nevada
* Capital punishment in the United States
* List of people executed in Nevada

References

Further reading

*

External links

1924: Gee Jon, debuting the gas chamber
at ExecutedToday.com

''State of Nevada v. Gee Jon''
211 pp. 676–1923

Gee Jon's chair at themobmuseum.org

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gee, Jon
1890s births
1924 deaths
20th-century executions by Nevada
Chinese emigrants to the United States
Chinese people convicted of murder
Chinese people executed abroad
Chinese people imprisoned in the United States
Executed people from Guangdong
Foreign nationals executed in the United States
People convicted of murder by Nevada
People executed by Nevada by gas chamber
People executed for murder
People from San Francisco
Year of birth uncertain
Executed gangsters