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A gas chamber is a means of execution where a poisonous gas is introduced into a hermetically sealed chamber. When the condemned breathes this gas, death follows. Hydrogen cyanide, or more rarely carbon monoxide, are the typical agents.

Gas chambers have been used for animal euthanasia in the past, but most jurisdictions no longer permit this.

The type of gas used in the Holocaust was usually hydrogen cyanide in a form called Zyklon B, but sometimes carbon monoxide (as exhaust gas).

Sometimes a box filled with anaesthetic gas is used to anaesthetize small animals for surgery.

Method

The reaction is broken down into two steps: The initiation stage:

2KCN (s) + H₂SO₄ (aq) → 2HCN (g) + K₂SO₄

and the cleanup stage:

HCN + NH₃ → NH₄ + CN.

Generally speaking, in the United States the execution protocol is as follows: First, the execution technician 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 execution technician 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 will then ask the condemned individual if he or she wishes to make a final statement. Following this, the executioner(s) will throw 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 condemned individual can see the visible gas, and is advised to take several deep breaths to speed unconsciousness in order to prevent unnecessary suffering. Most prisoners, however, try to hold their breath. Death from hydrogen cyanide is usually painful and unpleasant, although theoretically the condemned individual should lose consciousness before dying. The chamber is then 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. Ironically, the gas used to cleanse the chamber afterwards, anhydrous ammonia, is also very toxic, as is the contaminated acid that must be drained and disposed of.

United States

Gas chambers have been used for capital punishment in the United States in the past to execute criminals, especially convicted murderers. Five states (Wyoming, California, Maryland, Missouri, and Arizona) technically retain this method, but all allow lethal injection as an alternative. Following the videotaped execution of Robert Alton Harris a federal court in California declared this method of execution as "cruel and unusual punishment". In fact, it is highly unlikely that any of these states will ever again utilize the gas chamber, unless an inmate specifically requests to die by this method. In Arizona and Maryland, there are some inmates who were convicted before the gas chamber was replaced by lethal injection. In those states, it is possible for a gas chamber execution, but when those inmates are "removed" from death row (one way or another), the Gas Chamber will no longer have the realistic possibility of being used again. The use of the gas chamber was also controversial because of the use of large chambers to kill millions in Nazi concentration camps. Most states have now switched to methods considered less inhumane by officials, such as lethal injection.

The first person to be executed in the United States via gas chamber was Gee Jon, on February 8, 1924 in Nevada. As of 2006, the last person to be executed in the gas chamber was German national Walter LaGrand, whom Arizona executed on March 4, 1999.

As with all judicially mandated executions in the United States, witnesses are present during the procedure. These include members of the media, citizen witnesses, prison/legal/spiritual staff, and certain family members.

Controversy

Many claim that the gas chamber is inhumane. Reports of gas chamber executions include:

• September 2, 1983: Jimmy Lee Gray, Mississippi. Officials had to clear the room eight minutes after the gas was released when Gray’s desperate gasps for air repulsed witnesses. His attorney criticized state officials for clearing the room when the inmate was still alive. Says David Bruck, an attorney specializing in death penalty cases, "Jimmy Lee Gray died banging his head against a steel pole in the gas chamber while reporters counted his moans."

• April 6, 1992: Donald Eugene Harding, Arizona Gas Chamber. At 12:18 a.m. one pound of sodium cyanide pellets dropped into a vat beneath Harding’s chair containing six quarts of distilled water and six pints of sulfuric acid. Cameron Harper, a reporter for KTVK-TV, said, “I watched Harding go into violent spasms for 57 seconds.” Harper continued, “Then he began to convulse less frequently. His back muscles rippled. The spasms grew less violent. I timed them as ending 6 minutes and 37 seconds after they began. His head went down in little jerking motions. Obviously the gentleman was suffering. This was a violent death, make no mistake about it. It was an ugly event. We put animals to death more humanely. This was not a clean and simple death.” Carla McClain, another witness and a reporter for the Tucson Citizen, said, “Harding’s death was extremely violent. He was in great pain. I heard him gasp and moan. I saw his body turn from red to purple.”

Nazi Germany

More notoriously, gas chambers were used in the Nazi Third Reich during the 1930s as part of the so-called "public euthanasia program" aimed at eliminating physically and intellectually disabled people, and later the mentally ill. At that time, the preferred gas was carbon monoxide, often provided by the exhaust fumes of cars and trucks.

Later, during the Holocaust, gas chambers were modified and enhanced to accept even larger groups as part of the Nazi policy of genocide against Jews, and others. In January or February, 1940, 250 Gypsy children from Brno in the Buchenwald concentration camp were used as guinea pigs for testing the Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide absorbed into various solid substrates). 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.

Carbon monoxide was also used in large purpose-built gas chambers. The gas was provided by petrol or diesel engines designed for use in tanks or lorries. Nazi gas chambers in mobile vans and at least eight concentration camps (see also extermination camp) were used to kill several million people between 1941 and 1945. Some stationary gas chambers could kill 2,500 people at once.

The gas chambers were dismantled when Russian troops got close, except at Majdanek. The Nazis, faced with the threat of the Red Army, decided that their time would be better spent covering up their actions instead of resting and preparing for battle. The gas chamber at Auschwitz I was rebuilt after the war as a memorial, but without a door in its doorway.

Napoleonic France

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In a recent book, The Crime of Napoleon, French historian Claude Ribbe has claimed that Napoleon used poisoned gas (probably sulphur dioxide) to put down a slave rebellion in Haiti and Guadeloupe; in all, maybe up to 100,000 rebellious black slaves may have been executed. He bases his evidence on the accounts left by officers, some of whom refused to take part. The revelations in the book have been particularly shocking to the French establishment, which up until now viewed Napoleon as one of its greatest heroes.

Other nations

Recent reports indicate that gas chambers are used by North Korea both as punishment and for testing of lethal agents on humans (see Guardian link below).

Other meanings

The word gas chamber has been used for:

• A chamber filled with tear gas, used to train military and law enforcement personnel in use of gas masks and in resisting the effects of tear gas.
• The float chambers in the shells of some cephalopods.
• Alcoholic drink consisting of absinthe and Sambuca consumed by two people using two shot glasses and a wine glass.
• A room used to store gas in at atmospheric pressure, before compressed gas cylinders were invented: for example in basements of theaters to store the oxygen and hydrogen used to make limelight: the gas was stored in a big flexible gas-tight bag inside the room. (Ref: a BBC TV program which was discussing the etymology of the word "limelight".)

References

1. "Methods of Execution - Gas Chamber"
2. Emil Proester, Vraždeni čs. cikanu v Buchenwaldu (The murder of Czech Gypsies in Buchenwald). Document No. UV CSPB K-135 on deposit in the Archives of the Museum of the Fighters Against Nazism, Prague. 1940. (Quoted in: Miriam Novitch, Le génocide des Tziganes sous le régime nazi (Genocide of Gypsies by the Nazi Regime), Paris, AMIF, 1968)

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External links

• An engineering report on the Mississippi gas chamber.
• Rotten Library Article on Gas Chamber
• Gas chamber in US
• from Guardian newspaper (UK): "Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag " (Feb. 1, 2004)
• Nazi Gas Chambers

• Holocaust
• Nazi Germany
• Execution methods