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 fuel, a controversial methodology of execution that has been described by critics as a “merciless and strange type of punishment.”
Anthony Boyd, 54, was executed on Thursday night in america for killing a person by setting him on hearth 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 keeping with CBS Information. “There will be no justice till we modify this technique.”
Boyd’s loss of life marks the seventh time that Alabama has used nitrogen fuel on loss of life row inmates since January 2024.
The strategy has been used as an alternative of the intravenous deadly injection resulting from problems administering it and, extra not too long ago, in acquiring the cocktail of poisonous medicine, in keeping with the US-based Loss of life Penalty Info Heart.
The usage of nitrogen fuel is especially controversial as a result of it might 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 fuel violates the Eighth Modification of the US Structure that prohibits “merciless and strange punishments”.
The courtroom’s majority choice 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 fuel 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 strange punishment.”
Sarah Clifton, a neighborhood reporter who noticed Boyd’s execution for the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper on Thursday, stated all the process took almost 40 minutes from the time Boyd was strapped right down to when he was pronounced useless.
The state turned on nitrogen fuel at 5:57pm native time, however Boyd stored respiratory and spasmed for greater than 20 minutes till he lay nonetheless at 6:18pm, Clifton stated. The fuel was turned off by the state at 6:27pm, and Boyd was pronounced useless at 6:33pm.
Previous to his loss of life, Boyd had spent 30 years in jail. He was sentenced to loss of life in 1995 by a jury vote of 10-2 for the homicide of Gregory “New York” Huguley, in keeping with the Loss of life Penalty Info Heart.
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 charge of loss of life sentences within the nation”, it stated.
