A federal judge has ruled that California's use of cyanide gas to execute criminals is cruel and unusual punishment and therefore unconstitutional.
Unless Tuesday's ruling is overturned, it will shut down the state's gas chamber at San Quentin, forcing all future executions in California to be carried out by lethal injection. Nearly 200 prisoners have been executed in California's gas chamber since 1938.In the ruling, which cited eyewitness accounts of condemned prisoners dying in pain from the effects of cyanide gas, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in San Francisco noted that 40 states have banned lethal gas and said it is no longer considered an acceptable means of execution, The Associated Press reported.
"There is a societal consensus that this method of execution is inhumane and has no place in a civilized society," the judge wrote. Death by gas violates "evolving standards of human decency," she added.
Since last year, California law has allowed prisoners facing execution to choose to die by one of two methods - lethal gas or lethal injection.
Attorney General Dan Lungren said the state would appeal the ruling, to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
"We limit the use of the death penalty to only our most wanton and brutal killers, and yet the use of lethal gas is ruled cruel and unusual punishment. I find that totally unacceptable," he said.
"Victims' families are being told that in a legal sense, their pain is insignificant compared to the temporary pain of someone being put to death," Lungren said.
The suit was filed on behalf of several death row inmates by the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the death penalty, said ACLU lawyer Michael Lau-rence.
"There is something intrinsically important in stopping California from slowly suffocating people to death," he said. "The state of California has to be held accountable for what it does, even to death row inmates."
Gov. Pete Wilson issued a statement noting that California still can execute by lethal injection.
"Killers have no place in the civilized society of California," Wilson said. "I will do everything in my power to see to it that the people of California remain protected by the death penalty."