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Fact check: Arizona last performed a gas chamber execution in 1999, but some inmates have option

BrieAnna J. Frank   | Paste BN

The claim: Arizona is executing child molesters in gas chambers

Weeks after Arizona resumed executions following an eight-year pause in capital punishment, some social media users are claiming the state is using a controversial method to put certain criminals to death.

“Arizona now executing child molesters in a Holocaust like ‘Gas Chamber,’” read a purported CNN chyron in an image that was shared on Facebook on June 22 and got more than 200 shares in two days. 

But no such chyron ever appeared on CNN, and the claim of gas chambers being used to execute child molesters doesn't align with the reality. Only inmates sentenced to death for crimes committed before November 1992 can choose to be executed in a gas chamber, and the last time that happened was in 1999. 

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Paste BN reached out to the user who shared the claim for comment, and they provided no evidence supporting this assertion.

State's gas chamber last used in 1999

The purported CNN headline in the post is digitally created.

It could not be found on the outlet's website, and CNN spokesperson Sydney Baldwin told Paste BN in a June 23 email that the chyron seen in the Facebook post is “completely fabricated.” 

The content of the purported headline is also wrong.

While Arizona does have a gas chamber for executions, it has not been used to kill a death row inmate for more than 20 years.

After a gas chamber execution took more than 10 minutes to complete in 1992, Arizonans voted to replace lethal gas with lethal injection as the state’s default execution method.

Death row inmates whose crime was committed prior to Nov. 23, 1992, are eligible to choose death by gas, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections. The last time a prisoner opted for this method was in 1999, and it wasn't a child molestation case. Walter LaGrand died by gas chamber for his role in the stabbing death of a bank manager.

Arizona has no law or policy that requires this method of execution for particular types of offenders, as the post asserts with the reference to child molesters.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Jewish community group in February to stop the use of lethal gas for executions in the state, The Arizona Republic reported. The complaint called it a "grievous moral and constitutional injury" to use taxpayer money for "the same form of cruelty used in World War II atrocities." 

Out of 20 death row inmates at the time who had exhausted their appeals process, the newspaper reported that 17 would have the option to be executed by lethal gas. 

The death of convicted murderer Clarence Dixon through lethal injection in May marked the first execution in the state since 2014. It was also the first since the state refurbished its gas chamber, the only working one in the country, in late 2020, the Associated Press reported. 

Frank Jarvis Atwood, a death row inmate convicted of kidnapping and murdering 8-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson, was also executed by lethal injection several weeks later on June 8.

Our rating: False 

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that Arizona is executing child molesters in gas chambers. Only inmates sentenced to death for crimes committed before November 1992 can choose to be executed in a gas chamber, but the last time that happened was in 1999. And that didn't involve a child sex offense.

Our fact-check sources: 

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