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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 poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide.
Stanley Tookie Williams III was an American gangster who co-founded and led the Crips gang in Los Angeles. He and Raymond Washington formed an alliance in 1971 that established the Crips as Los Angeles' first major African-American street gang. During the 1970s, Williams was the de facto leader of the Crips and the prominent crime boss in South Los Angeles.
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 20 states have the ability to execute death sentences, with the other seven, as well as the federal government, being subject to different types of moratoriums. The existence of capital punishment in the United States can be traced to early colonial Virginia. Along with Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan, the United States is one of four advanced democracies and the only Western nation that applies the death penalty regularly. It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution, which has since been adopted by five other countries. The Philippines has since abolished executions, and Guatemala has done so for civil offenses, leaving the United States as one of four countries to still use this method. It is common practice for the condemned to be administered sedatives prior to execution, regardless of the method used.
In the U.S. state of California, capital punishment is a legal penalty. However it is not allowed to be carried out as of June 2023, because executions were halted by an official moratorium ordered by Governor Gavin Newsom. Prior to the moratorium, executions were frozen by a federal court order since 2006, and the litigation resulting in the court order has been on hold since the promulgation of the moratorium. Thus, there will be a court-ordered moratorium on executions after the termination of Newsom's moratorium if capital punishment remains a legal penalty in California by then.
Capital punishment is one of two possible penalties for aggravated murder in the U.S. state of Oregon, with it being required by the Constitution of Oregon.
Robert Alton Harris was an American car thief, burglar, kidnapper and murderer who was executed at San Quentin State Prison in 1992 for the 1978 murders of two teenage boys in San Diego. His execution was the first in the state of California since 1967.
Caryl Whittier Chessman was a convicted robber, kidnapper and serial rapist who was sentenced to death for a series of crimes committed in January 1948 in the Los Angeles area. Chessman was charged with 17 counts and convicted under a loosely interpreted "Little Lindbergh law" – later repealed, but not retroactively – that defined kidnapping as a capital offense under certain circumstances. His case attracted worldwide attention, and helped propel the movement to end the use of capital punishment in the state of California.
John Louis Evans III was the first inmate to be executed by the state of Alabama after the United States reinstituted the death penalty in 1976. The manner of his execution is frequently cited by opponents of capital punishment in the United States. Evans was born in Beaumont, Texas, and was executed at the Holman Correctional Facility near Atmore, Alabama, at the age of 33.
The People of the State of California v. Robert Page Anderson, 493 P.2d 880, 6 Cal. 3d 628, was a landmark case in the state of California that outlawed capital punishment for nine months until the enactment of a constitutional amendment reinstating it, Proposition 17.
Charles Laverne Singleton was an American convicted murderer, who, at the time of his execution, lived on death row in Arkansas longer than any other state inmate. He was executed in 2004 for the June 1, 1979, murder of 19-year-old Hamburg store owner Mary Lou York.
Kenneth Biros was an American convicted murderer who was sentenced to death and executed for the aggravated murder, attempted rape, aggravated robbery and felonious sexual penetration of a young woman. Biros was the first condemned person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States with the use of a single drug, setting a Guinness World Record.
Sean Richard Sellers was an American triple murderer, one of 22 persons in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 to be executed for a crime committed while under the age of 18, and the only one to have been executed for a crime committed under the age of 17. His case drew worldwide attention due to his age as well as his jailhouse conversion to Christianity and his claim that demonic possession made him innocent of his crimes.
Capital punishment in Connecticut formerly existed as an available sanction for a criminal defendant upon conviction for the commission of a capital offense. Since the 1976 United States Supreme Court decision in Gregg v. Georgia until Connecticut repealed capital punishment in 2012, Connecticut had only executed one person, Michael Bruce Ross in 2005. Initially, the 2012 law allowed executions to proceed for those still on death row and convicted under the previous law, but on August 13, 2015, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that applying the death penalty only for past cases was unconstitutional.
Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States existed until March 2, 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in Roper v. Simmons. Prior to Roper, there were 71 people on death row in the United States for crimes committed as juveniles.
Capital punishment in Alabama is a legal penalty. Alabama has the highest per capita capital sentencing rate in the United States. In some years, its courts impose more death sentences than Texas, a state that has a population five times as large. However, Texas has a higher rate of executions both in absolute terms and per capita.
Capital punishment was abolished in Colorado in 2020. It was legal from 1974 until 2020 prior to it being abolished in all future cases.
Luis José Monge was a convicted mass murderer who was executed in the gas chamber at Colorado State Penitentiary in 1967. Monge was the last inmate to be executed before an unofficial moratorium on execution that lasted for more than four years while most death penalty cases were on appeal, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia in 1972, invalidating all existing death penalty statutes as written.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Florida.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Mississippi.
References
- ↑ Frankl, Viktor (1975). The Unconscious God. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 133. ISBN 0-671-22426-3.
- ↑ "Convicted police killer is executed in California", time.com; accessed 10 September 2016.
- ↑ Fierro, Ruiz, Harris v. Gomez, 94-16775 (U.S. 9th Circuit1996).