Anthony Boyd, 54, earlier misplaced his enchantment to be executed by firing squad by the state of Alabama.
Revealed On 24 Oct 2025
The US state of Alabama has executed a person convicted in a 1993 killing, utilizing nitrogen gasoline, a controversial methodology of execution that has been described by critics as a “merciless and weird type of punishment.”
Anthony Boyd, 54, was executed on Thursday night in the US for killing a person by setting him on fireplace over a $200 drug debt.
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Boyd has maintained his innocence within the case and repeated his place in his final phrases.”I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t take part in killing anyone,” he stated on Thursday, in line with CBS Information. “There could be no justice till we modify this technique.”
Boyd’s dying marks the seventh time that Alabama has used nitrogen gasoline on dying row inmates since January 2024.
The tactic has been used as an alternative of the intravenous deadly injection as a consequence of problems administering it and, extra just lately, in acquiring the cocktail of poisonous medication, in line with the US-based Loss of life Penalty Data Middle.
Using nitrogen gasoline is especially controversial as a result of it might probably draw out the size of an execution. Previous to his execution, Boyd appealed to a number of courts to be killed by firing squad as an alternative, however his request was turned down.
The US Supreme Court docket additionally rejected his plea that nitrogen gasoline violates the Eighth Modification of the US Structure that prohibits “merciless and weird punishments”.
The court docket’s majority determination was opposed by the Supreme Court docket’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In her dissent, Sotomayor described nitrogen gasoline as a “torturous suffocation” in contrast with different strategies.
“Boyd asks for the barest type of mercy: to die by firing squad, which might kill him in seconds,” she wrote. “The Structure would grant him that grace. My colleagues don’t. This Court docket thus turns its again on Boyd and on the Eighth Modification’s assure towards merciless and weird punishment.”
Sarah Clifton, an area reporter who noticed Boyd’s execution for the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper on Thursday, stated the complete process took practically 40 minutes from the time Boyd was strapped right down to when he was pronounced useless.
The state turned on nitrogen gasoline at 5:57pm native time, however Boyd saved respiratory and spasmed for greater than 20 minutes till he lay nonetheless at 6:18pm, Clifton stated. The gasoline was turned off by the state at 6:27pm, and Boyd was pronounced useless at 6:33pm.
Previous to his dying, Boyd had spent 30 years in jail. He was sentenced to dying in 1995 by a jury vote of 10-2 for the homicide of Gregory “New York” Huguley, in line with the Loss of life Penalty Data Middle.
The prosecution’s case was primarily based solely on witness testimony with no bodily proof, the centre stated. The authorized case was additionally heard in an Alabama county that on the time had the “highest per capita price of dying sentences within the nation”, it stated.
