JAH—Journal of American History
JAMA—Journal of the American Medical Association
JCPT—Jefferson City Post-Tribune
JIEC—Journal of Industrial Engineering Chemistry
KCS—Kansas City Star
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LAHE—Los Angeles Herald Examiner
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LD—Literary Digest
NCHQ—North Carolina Historical Quarterly
NHSQ—Nevada Historical Society Quarterly
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SB—Sacramento Bee
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SFE—San Francisco Examiner
SJMH—San Jose Mercury Herald
SMT—San Mateo Times
SSS—Social Studies of Science
TC—Tucson Citizen
TDC—Tucson Daily Citizen
TDT—Tahoe Daily Tribune
TT—Tonopah Daily Times
UCLR—University of Colorado Law Review
USPHR—U.S. Public Health Reports
WP—Washington Post
WSJ—Winston-Salem Journal
INTRODUCTION
1. Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (Chapel Hilclass="underline" University of North Carolina Press, 1995), p. 93.
2. Informed but brief mention of the lethal chamber and Nevada’s first gassing appears in Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), p. 258.
3. Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, reprint (New York: Robert Schalkenback Foundation, 1970), pp. 58–60, 289–90.
4. Francis Galton, Essays in Eugenics (London: Eugenics Education Society, 1909), p. 35. Galton’s conception is discussed in Alexandra Minna Stern, Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), p. 11.
5. Black, War Against the Weak, p. 21.
6. Stern, Eugenic Nation, pp. 16–17.
7. “Exterminating Agent for Vermin,” filed by Gerhard Peters, Application May 26, 1939, Serial No. 276,021, in Germany, June 7, 1938, patent 2,344,105, U.S. Patent Office, March 14, 1944.
8. Friedlander, Origins of Nazi Genocide, p. 93.
9. See Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005); Claude Ribbe, Napoleon’s Crimes: A Blueprint for Hitler (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007), originally published in French as Le Crime de Napoléon in 2005.
10. State of Nebraska v. Mata, N.W.2d _, filed Feb. 8, 2008, No. S-05–1268; Adam Liptak, “Electrocution Is Banned in Last State to Rely on It,” NYT, February 9, 2008.
11. Linda Greenhouse, “Justices to Enter the Debate over Lethal Injection,” NYT, September 26, 2007; Baze v. Rees, No. 07–5439.
12. Professor Denno quoted in Rob Egelko, “Supreme Court to Review Lethal Injection Methods,” SFC, September 26, 2007.
13. Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. _ (2008).
14. Recent histories of the electric chair include Richard Moran, The Executioner’s Current (New York: Knopf, 2003); Jill Jonnes, Empires of Light (New York: Random House, 2004); Mark Essig, Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death (New York: Walker & Co., 2003); and Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1999).
15. Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer, Punishment and Social Structure (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), p. 5; Tony Platt and Paul Takagi, eds., Punishment and Penal Discipline (San Francisco: Crime and Social Justice, 1980), p. 13; Rusche, “Labor Market and Penal Sanction: Thoughts on the Sociology of Criminal Justice,” trans. Gerda Dinwiddie, Crime & Social Justice (Fall/Winter 1978): 5. For a brief discussion of some of the rationales and theories of criminal punishment, see Scott Christianson, With Liberty for Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998), pp. 309–13.
16. Rusche and Kirchheimer, Punishment and Social Structure, p. 5.
17. In 1922 Schweitzer delivered the Dale Memorial Lectures at Oxford University, and from them the following year appeared volumes 1 and 2 of his great work, The Decay and Restoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics. In 1936 he published the article “Reverence for Life” in the periodical Christendom 1 (1936): 225–39.
18. David Garland, Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 153.
19. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume I (New York: Vintage, 1990), p. 95.
20. Garland, Punishment and Modern Society, pp. 106–9.
21. Ibid., chapters 6 and 7.
22. Jürgen Habermas, “Learning by Disaster? A Diagnostic Look Back on the Short 20th Century,” Constellations 5(3) (1998): 307–20.
1. ENVISIONING THE LETHAL CHAMBER
1. Claude Bernard (1813–78), De l’emploi de l’oxyde de carbone pour la détermination de l’oxygène au sang (Compt. rend. de l’Acad. des sciences, meeting of September 6, 1858, vol. 47).
2. Peter D. Bryon, Comprehensive Review in Toxicology for Emergency Technicians (London: Informa Heath Care Press, 1996), p. 352. “Cyanide” refers to “a large number of compounds that contain the negatively charged cyanide ion: CN-. This ion consists of one carbon atom triple-bonded to one nitrogen atom. The negative charge primarily rests on the carbon atom. Cyanide can be found both as a gas and as a salt. When bound to hydrogen, it’s referred to as hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and is a gas at room temperature. When bound to ions like sodium (Na+) or Potassium (K+), it’s a salt and is a water-soluble solid. Its name varies depending on the ion it binds. KCN is potassium cyanide, for example” (Brian Harmon, “Technical Aspects of the Holocaust: Cyanide, Zyklon-B, and Mass Murder,” 1994, http://nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/camps/auschwitz/cyanide/cyanide.001 [accessed September 11, 2007]).