2.000 BACKGROUND.

The principal investigator and author of this report is a specialist in the design and fabrication of execution hardware in the United States utilized for the execution of condemned persons by means of hydrogen cyanide (Zyklon B) gas. Additionally, the investigator has constructed hardware for electrocution, lethal injection and hanging.

2.001 The investigator has inspected the alleged gas-execution facilities at the German Concentration Camps in Poland and previously authored "A Technical Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek, Poland". The investigator has likewise inspected the alleged gas chambers at Mauthausen Concentration Camp and Hartheim Castle in Austria; and Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. He also has authored "A Technical Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Dachau, Germany, Mauthausen and Hartheim Castle, Austria".

2.002 The investigator has inspected the Gas Execution Chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, has considered drawings of the chamber, consulted with the skilled operators of the chamber, studied the execution protocol utilized with the chamber and made drawings, photographs and video tapes of the chamber.

2.003 The investigator did not construct the Gas Execution Chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, nor is he responsible for the protocol utilized there. This chamber was built in the early 1950s by the Eaton Metal Products Company of Denver, Colorado who constructed this chamber, as they did most of the other chambers in the United States. In the construction of this chamber they utilized design criteria first developed and used in the early 1920s for the Arizona Gas Chamber. The protocol is wholly Eaton's, with the exception of special tailoring by the states.

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