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Arizona makes plans to use Zyklon B gas for executions

sun rise

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
I found that hard to believe but the story is accurate. AZ wants to use hydrogen cyanide for executions.

I share your feelings about this development. It's a horrible way to die. Some examples about how horrible it is are in this story which also notes that this is not new for AZ having done this before - but apparently with little media coverage.

I'm trying very hard not to draw politics into this but find it impossible not to reflect on that topic.
 
Stevicus

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Shaul said:
The state of Arizona is making plans to use Zyklon B gas to execute two people. Zyklon B is the gas used to murder Jews by the Nazis in their concentration camps.

Arizona prepares to use Zyklon B to execute two inmates, provoking outrage

:(:cry:
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I had not heard about this, so I tried to find any Arizona news sites with this story, but could only find this from the Arizona Republic: Is Arizona copying a Nazi execution method in its gas chamber? (azcentral.com)

I do recall a few months back when the state was seeking to carry out the executions of two inmates. Since their crimes were committed before 1992, they have the option of being executed by lethal gas or by lethal injection. I thought they had phased out using the gas chamber, and were switching over to lethal injection. These inmates may yet opt for lethal injection, so it's possible they may not use the gas at all.

Apparently, this story is based on documents obtained by The Guardian from the Arizona Department of Corrections, who haven't confirmed anything.

According to documents obtained by the Guardian, the Arizona Department of Corrections has been busy restoring the state’s gas chamber to workable condition and has purchased the chemicals necessary to turn it into a proper killing machine.

In doing so, however, did they take a page out of Adolf Hitler’s playbook?

The Guardian reports that DOC has purchased a brick of potassium cyanide, sodium hydroxide pellets and sulfuric acid, which when used in the desired order create cyanide gas.

“The same lethal gas that was deployed at Auschwitz,” the article says.

The report about the DOC’s actions was noted in the Jerusalem Post, which also pointed out that Arizona would be following Nazi methodology.

Even if you believe strongly in the death penalty is this technique for killing a person something you want our state to be associated with?
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Arizona is not good at killing people
The problem is that while Arizona still has a death penalty the state has been really bad at killing people.

As you may recall, the execution of Joseph Wood in 2014 was a cruelly bungled affair in which the executioner had to administer the (eventually) lethal dose of the drug midazolam 15 times before a hideously suffering Wood finally died.
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Back in 1992, when the state reinstituted the death penalty after a nearly 30-year hiatus, the first inmate executed, Donald Harding, died in the gas chamber that is now being refurbished.

It took roughly 10 minutes to kill him.

Witnesses reported that Harding took big gulps of the deadly gas, that his face got more and more red and that he slumped forward in his restraints and convulsed with tremors that rocked his upper body.
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There's also that pesky Eighth Amendment
A television journalist who witnessed the execution said afterward, “We put horses down more humanely … It was not something you would want to see.''

I’ve been told – again and again – that the murderers we condemn deserve as painful a death as their victims.

I get that.

But there is that pesky Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution banning “cruel and unusual punishments.”
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Even so, putting aside any arguments over whether capital punishment should exist, and simply accepting for now that it does, why would Arizona want in any way to adopt a practice affiliated with Nazis?

Or, as Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told the Guardian, “You have to wonder what Arizona was thinking in believing that in 2021 it is acceptable to execute people in a gas chamber with cyanide gas. Did they have anybody study the history of the Holocaust?”
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Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Here for the ride
Premium Member
This sounds like obvious biased clickbait. Zyklon B hasn't existed in decades, as a product. You can't even use the word "zyklon" (which means "cyclone" in German) on products and such without provoking a furor just in Germany. So I guess it's something with a similar chemical profile.
 
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Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Saint Frankenstein said:
This sounds like obvious biased clickbait. Zyklon B hasn't existed in decades, as a product. You can't even use the word "zyklon" (which means "cyclone" in German) on products and such without provoking fury just in Germany. So I guess it's something with a similar chemical profile.
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Yes, it is unfortunately dishonest reporting. From what I have seen they are going to use hydrogen cyanide. Hydrogen cyanide was a component of Zyklon B, but there were other ingredients too.

Why do they do this? What Arizona is doing is bad enough as it is. When false reporting is done and then it is exposed weakens the story terribly.

Edited for clarity.
 
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Twilight Hue

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Considering the past botched executions in Ohio a gas alternative to lethal injection might be better.
 
Twilight Hue

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Saint Frankenstein said:
Or just a bullet to the back of the head. I don't really know why we bother with these other complicated methods.
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I'm starting to wonder if the Russians still do that? The last one was Sergey Golovkin, death by firing squad before a moratorium on capital punishment kicked in.
 
Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Twilight Hue said:
I'm starting to wonder if the Russians still do that? The last one was Sergey Golovkin, death by firing squad before a moratorium on capital punishment kicked in.
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Or we could not sink to the level of killer. That seems the more appropriate approach. There is no such thing as a humane execution, too many innocents are put to death, and further death doesn't really actually resolve anything. It may make some people feel good, but that's it. Demanding executions and feeling good over people being killed is something that radical extremists do (they too often have hangings and firing squads as well).
We should expect the state, especially our courts, to be as much as possible above such emotional drives. Not everyone who kills someone is a vicious person or hardened criminal, and of those who are dangerous why are we collectively tolerating sinking to that level, the level of psychopathic serial killers chasing a "fix" (more like a drug fix than a cure fix) that never comes and extremists beheading someone who offended their god? They are the sort who intentionally kill. As a society we can do better.
 
epronovost

epronovost

Well-Known Member
Saint Frankenstein said:
Or just a bullet to the back of the head. I don't really know why we bother with these other complicated methods.
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The logic was that firing squad were some sort of "military punishment" or "too honorable" for common criminal. They didn't like the guillotine due to its French and revolutionary origin. Hanging was perceived as too medieval and sometime went bad and the US wanted something "modern" in the early 20th century to set them apart from the rest of the world hence the electric chair which nobody else used. When they realized that cooking people alive for a couple of minutes was nauseating at best, they shifted to lethal injection, but since doctors and nurses take the Hippocratic Oath, they can't participate or aid in execution thus this medical procedure is made and designed by amateurs. In recent years, drug companies have faced boycotts over this issue and have decided not to produce the poisonous compound for the US government forcing the States to rely on other lower quality drugs and a frantic search for other ways to kill people. In other words, it's a complete mess and the death penalty should be dropped.
 
Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
In Washington hanging used to be an option. Until an inmate ate and ate and ate until he was very obese. He "chose" hanging, and then argued that it was cruel and unusual punishment since there was supposedly a real chance that his head would be ripped off of his body.

Personally I have a feeling that the Supreme Court of Washington was anti-death penalty and was grasping at straws since they were too afraid to declare it an unconstitutional punishment.
 
G

Glaurung

Denizen of Niflheim
Saint Frankenstein said:
Or just a bullet to the back of the head. I don't really know why we bother with these other complicated methods.
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I agree with you. If a state insists on having the death penalty then a bullet or noose will do the job just fine. This notion that executions should be 'humane' seems a rather bizarre concern. You're either committed the justice of the death penalty or you're not. And if you are committed to it then why this specious concern for the momentary pain inflected upon the condemned?

epronovost said:
In recent years, drug companies have faced boycotts over this issue and have decided not to produce the poisonous compound for the US government forcing the States to rely on other lower quality drugs and a frantic search for other ways to kill people. In other words, it's a complete mess and the death penalty should be dropped.
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To be fair. It is only a mess because the U.S. makes it a mess. Some years ago Indonesia executed some Australian drug smugglers by firing squad. (It was big news in the Australian media). Whether or not we think Indonesia was justified in the executions, at least they got the job done without artificial fuss. It's hard to botch a firing squad.
 
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