February 7, 1924 marked an important moment in American prison history, when The state of Nevada carried out the first execution using hydrogen cyanide.
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Gee Jon, a Chinese immigrant convicted of murder, was the protagonist of this event. Now, a century later, the country is again facing the gas execution controversy, this time exploring the use of nitrogen.
From the execution of Gee in 1924 to that of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama just two weeks ago, nearly 600 individuals have been killed by this method in the North American country.
Gee, who was 29 years old at the time of his execution, had been born in 1895 in the Chinese province of Canton and emigrated to the United States around 1908, settling in San Francisco, California.
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There, he joined the Hip Sing Tong, a criminal gang dedicated to liquor and narcotics trafficking, in competition with the Bing Kong Tong.
The crime that led to his execution occurred in Mina, Nevada, when Gee, armed with a .38 caliber Colt revolver, ended the life of Tom Quong Kee, 74-year-old laundry owner, belonging to the rival gang.
Between 1967 and 1977, amid a legal battle over the death penalty, there were no executions in the United States.
The introduction of hydrogen cyanide as a method of execution was perceived as a more “humane” alternative compared to the electric chair, which had replaced hangings.
In Gee's execution in 1924, a sealed gas chamber filled with hydrogen cyanide was used, although the safety of the process was questioned when witnesses were evacuated due to fear of gas leaks and prison doctors refrained from performing an autopsy due to the danger of cyanide exposure.
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Despite their initial popularity, the use of gas chambers declined after World War II, possibly due to their association with the Holocaust.
The modern era
During the period from 1967 to 1977, amid legal debates over the death penalty, no executions were carried out in the United States, marking a time of transition to what is known as the “modern era” of capital punishment in the country.
In this “modern era”, which has seen the execution of 1,583 individuals, Kenneth Eugene Smith being the last of them, Lethal injection has become the predominant method since its introduction in 1982 in Texas, followed by electrocutions, and to a lesser extent, executions by gas, shooting and hanging.
Texas has led the way in implementing the death penalty, followed by Oklahoma, Virginia and Florida. Although capital punishment remains legal in 27 states, only a dozen have carried out executions in the last decade, including the federal government under Donald Trump's administration, which executed 13 prisoners in a year and a half.
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Faced with difficulty in obtaining the drugs needed for lethal injection due to pressure on pharmaceutical companies, and controversies over the humanity of this method, states like Alabama have begun to explore alternatives, such as nitrogen asphyxiation.
George Junius Stinney Jr. was, at the age of 14, the youngest person to be executed by death penalty in the United States in 1944. In 2014, seventy years after his death, he was acquitted of his charges and his conviction considered null pic.twitter.com/WQAlsaQkzr
— Pat Wermus (@PatWermus) January 22, 2024
This option, considered more “humane” and without the same logistical complications, has gained interest in several states, such as Oklahoma and Mississippi, which have already approved it.
With nearly 2,300 individuals on death row, the debate over the method and morality of capital punishment in the United States continues to be a hot topic in society and the country's judicial system.
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*This content was rewritten with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on information from EFE, and was reviewed by a journalist and an editor.
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