LOS ANGELES – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit to stop the use of cyanide gas, used by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, in the executions of those sentenced to death in the state of Arizona, local media reported today Wednesday.
The lawsuit against the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADCRR) argues that the use of cyanide gas “violates the protection against cruel and unusual punishment guaranteed by the Arizona Constitution” .
Cyanide gas was used during World War II in Nazi gas chambers, and although Arizona voters voted against the use of this gas in 1992, people sentenced to death before the vote (23 November 1992) can be executed with this method.
There are currently 115 people on death row in Arizona. At least 17 of them were convicted for their crimes before 1992, according to data of the ACLU.
Last year the Arizona prosecutor, Mark Brnovich, said the state would resume executions of people on death row who have exhausted their appeals, so the plaintiffs they want the courts to eliminate the use of gas “once and for all”.
“Under no circumstances should the same execution method used to murder more than a million people, including Jews, during the Holocaust, in the execution of people on death row,” said Jared Keenan, senior attorney for the ACLU of Arizona, in a statement.
The ACLU represents the Greater Phoenix Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and two Arizona residents who are members of the Jewish community in the lawsuit.
Tim Eckstein, chairman of the JCRC board, said in a statement that approximately 80 Holocaust survivors currently live in Arizona.
“They are horrified that they have to pay taxes to implement the same machinery of cruelty that was used to murder their loved ones. It is terrible that Arizona has chosen to use the same chemical compound that the Nazis used in Auschwitz to murder more than a million people”, valued Eckstein.
Arizona has been in the eye of the storm since last year due to its plans to restore the gas chamber in the Florence prison, one of the first prisons built in Arizona in the early 20th century, according to the ADCRR website.
The prison was built with an execution chamber, which sits above death row. The first execution with lethal gas took place on July 6, 1934, when the brothers Manuel and Fred Hernández were executed.
The The last prisoner to be executed in a gas chamber in the United States was Walter LaGrand, the second of two German brothers sentenced to death for killing a bank manager in 1982 in the South from Arizona. LaGrand took 18 minutes to die in 1999. Before 1999 there were other 36 executions with lethal gas in Arizona.