Man executed on death row by controversial method condemned for causing 'intense psychological torment'
Another man has been executed on death row using a controversial method, just hours after it was condemned.
Anthony Todd Boyd became the seventh death row inmate in Alabama, US, to be put to death by nitrogen gas yesterday (23 October).
According to state officials, the 54-year-old was pronounced dead at 6:33pm local time and had professed his innocence right up until his final words.
The man’s execution came not long after the US Supreme Court condemned the method for causing ‘intense psychological torment’.
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Widely debated, the method was first used on death row inmate Kenneth Smith in January 2024.
It is carried out by a mask being fitted over the prisoner’s face with nitrogen gas then being administered. And it was reported that Boyd’s execution appeared to take longer than the previous executions by nitrogen gas had done.
Boyd was convicted following a killing in 1993 when prosecutors argued he and three other men tracked down Gregory Huguley for an unpaid $200 cocaine debt.
It’s said they then kidnapped the man, doused him in gasoline and watched him burn to death. The other accused men testified against Boyd, but he has always maintained he was at a party at the time of the murder.
He was in tears in 1995 when a jury found him guilty of capital murder, as it’s reported he said to reporters afterwards: “I’ll maintain my innocence until the day I die.”
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And as part of his last words before his execution yesterday, he said: “I just wanna say again, I didn't kill anybody, I didn't participate in killing anybody.
“I just want everyone to know, there is no justice in this state.”
The death row prisoner had requested that the state use a different execution method, such as firing squad. However, this was denied, which was criticised by Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor.
“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,” she wrote. “The Constitution would grant him that grace. My colleagues do not.”
While officials reportedly would not give an exact time, multiple witnesses say the nitrogen gas began flowing at 5:57pm, with Boyd taking ‘deep, shuddering breaths’ for 14 minutes.
“It’s like he’s gasping for air,” his brother said, per the Montgomery Advisor.
Following shallow breathing and ‘choking breaths’, his last breath didn’t reportedly come until around 6:17pm.
Attorney General Steve Marshall previously defended the controversial method as ‘constitutional and effective’.
"After 30 years on death row, Anthony Boyd's death sentence has been carried out, and his victim's family has finally received justice,” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said.
Jess Battison