Fierro

Plaintiffs, three California inmates sentenced to death, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 . The inmates alleged that California’s method of execution, lethal gas, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and thus violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the federal Constitution. The United States District Court for the Northern District of California held that, to the extent that the statute provides for execution by lethal gas, it is cruel and unusual punishment. Defendants James Gomez, Director of the California Department of Corrections, and Arthur Calderon, Warden of San Quentin Prison, now appeal that decision. Defendants also appeal the district court’s permanent injunction against the use of lethal gas as a method of execution. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We affirm.

PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

On April 17, 1992, plaintiffs David Fierro, Alejandro Gilbert Ruiz, and Robert Alton Harris, California inmates sentenced to death, filed this suit on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated. Fierro v. Gomez, 790 F.Supp. 966 (N.D.Cal.1992) (“Fi-erro I ”). Harris was scheduled to be executed in California’s gas chamber on April 21, 1992, four…