Entries tagged with “Gee Jon”

Federal Death Penalty

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Methods of Execution

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Botched Executions

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May 05, 2026

New Analysis: In Seeking Firing Squad, Electrocution, and Nitrogen Gas Executions, DOJ Misrepresents American History and Law

On April 24, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report propos­ing an expan­sion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty, includ­ing adding fir­ing squad, elec­tro­cu­tion, and lethal gas as exe­cu­tion meth­ods. The DOJ char­ac­ter­izes the Biden Administration’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions as​“an unprece­dent­ed break from the \[DOJ\]’s long­stand­ing approach to the death penal­ty,” while cast­ing this new effort as a return to form. The DOJ fur­ther claims that the three…

Executions

Methods of Execution

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Feb 08, 2024

Past to Present: 100 Years Since the United States’ First Lethal Gas Execution, a Recently Renewed Practice

Today, February 8, marks the 100-year anniver­sary of the first lethal gas exe­cu­tion in the United States, exact­ly two weeks after Alabama car­ried out the first exe­cu­tion using nitro­gen gas. On February 8, 1924, Nevada exe­cut­ed Gee Jon, a Chinese immi­grant con­vict­ed of killing the own­er of a laun­dro­mat, using cyanide gas. A fel­low pris­on­er, Thomas Russell, was also sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed the same day but was resen­tenced to life by the Board of Pardons and Parole the…