The Jews Against Gassing Coalition is not opposed to the death penalty, but its members have spoken out against the prospect of gas executions because, they say, the method evokes the Holocaust. Fordham Law Professor Deborah Denno, death penalty expert and founding director of Fordham Law’s Neuroscience and Law Center, comments on the public opinion of nitrogen hypoxia as a form of execution, in this CNN article.
Nitrogen hypoxia also differs from historical lethal gas executions in a couple key respects: First, the fatal gas is not administered in a chamber but – in Alabama and Louisiana – through a mask worn by the inmate, said Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School who for decades has studied the death penalty and execution methods.
And second, nitrogen is a non-toxic, inert gas, and almost 80% of the air we breathe is nitrogen. Historically, states used for their gas chambers the toxic hydrogen cyanide – similar to the Zyklon-B compound used by the Nazis – according to Christianson’s “The Last Gasp.”
But “the association of gas with the Nazi Holocaust is horrifying to people in general,” said Denno. “This is a cultural stigma that I think is really a challenge to overcome.”