In San Quentin’s apple-green death house, one or two prisoners at a time are strapped in chairs built around a vat of sulphuric acid and water. A bag of cyanide eggs hangs over it. When the executioner releases a lever, the cyanide is submerged. The resulting gas kills by means of cellular asphyxia–cells can’t use oxygen. Within a few seconds of his first breath, the prisoner convulses. Most buck and writhe against the straps. Consciousness lasts from 10 seconds to eight minutes. Judge Marilyn Hall Patel must weigh whether all the gasps and twitches show undue suffering, or are just involuntary movements. Dead men don’t testify, so the trial amounts to a collection of harrowing tales from the gas-chamber observation desk, as interpreted by doctors and toxicologists. One doctor testified that veterinarians won’t even use cyanide to put dogs to sleep. The most graphic piece of evidence remains under court seal–a videotape ordered by Patel of the 1992 gassing of Robert Alton Harris. The ACLU says it won’t seek to have it shown unless the state disputes witness accounts of the execution.
For all the effort the state is expending, a defeat in this case hardly matters. Fearing a lawsuit, the California legislature made lethal injection an option this year. Even with no gas chamber, inmates will still die at the appointed hour. All they’ll have left to choose, though, is whether to have that final slice of pie a la mode.
