An Alabama inmate convicted of murder was put to death using nitrogen gas — a method that has drawn widespread criticism for its potential cruelty.
Anthony Todd Boyd was executed by nitrogen hypoxia at a prison in Atmore, Alabama, on Thursday, Oct. 23, according to the Alabama Attorney General’s Office.
Boyd was convicted for the 1993 murder of Gregory Huguley. Prosecutors said Boyd and several co-defendants kidnapped Huguley over a $200 cocaine debt. Authorities stated that the victim was taken to a baseball field, bound with duct tape to a bench, doused in gasoline, and set on fire.
A jury found Boyd guilty of capital murder in 1995, sentencing him to death. His execution was delayed for decades until the U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt the procedure.
According to The Montgomery Advertiser, Boyd maintained his innocence until the end. “I just wanna say again, I didn’t kill anybody, I didn’t participate in killing anybody. Just want everyone to know, there is no justice in this state,” he said in his final statement, as reported by the paper.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall later said in a statement that Boyd “never once presented evidence that the jury was wrong.”
USA Today reported that Boyd had requested to die by firing squad instead of nitrogen hypoxia, though officials said he had originally chosen the nitrogen method in 2018.
Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the majority decision allowing the execution to proceed. In her dissent, Sotomayor wrote, “Boyd asks for the barest form of mercy: to die by firing squad, which would kill him in seconds, rather than by a tortuous suffocation lasting up to four minutes.”
