The Last Gasp: The Rise and Fall of the American Gas Chamber

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With a project of this sort, there are countless individuals to thank for many things. I can only single out a few persons for acknowledgment, while attesting to the fact that I alone am responsible for any errors or other shortcomings.

I am especially thankful to Michael Laurence of the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco for providing access to the voluminous materials compiled as part of his historic constitutional challenge to lethal gas executions known as Fierro v. Gomez, and also for sharing with me some of his personal observations and experiences involving California’s gas chamber. This study could not have been completed without his assistance. However, he had no editorial control over the final product. I have also benefited from the lifework and generosity of the great Anthony Amsterdam, who graciously served as an advisor to one of my earlier death penalty documentation projects, just as in the 1970s I gained much from my discussions with Jack Boger, David Kendall, and other brilliant lawyers who were then staff attorneys at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., as well as from my frequent exchanges with the late Henry Schwarzschild of the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project. A tiny but committed cadre of brilliant lawyers changed history in those years.

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