Alabama Executes Man Convicted of Burning Victim Alive Using Controversial Nitrogen Gas Method By Liam Quinn

An Alabama man convicted of murder was executed using a controversial nitrogen gas method.

Anthony Todd Boyd was executed by nitrogen hypoxia at a prison in Atmore, Ala., on Thursday, Oct. 23, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office said.

Boyd had been convicted of the 1993 murder of Gregory Huguley. Authorities said Boyd and other co-defendants kidnapped Huguley over a $200 cocaine debt.

Huguley was taken to a baseball field, duct-taped to a bench, doused in gasoline and lit on fire, according to state authorities.

Boyd was convicted of capital murder in 1995 and sentenced to death.

Boyd’s execution was delayed for decades but was allowed to proceed Thursday when the United State Supreme Court declined to intervene.

The Montgomery Advertiser reported that Boyd used his last words to deny that he killed Huguley.

“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,” Boyd said in part, according to the paper.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement that Boyd “never once presented evidence that the jury was wrong.”

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USA Today reported that Boyd had requested to die by firing squad rather than by nitrogen hypoxia, though state officials said he had first requested hypoxia in 2018.

Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented to Alabama’s use of nitrogen gas in the execution.

“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,” Sotomayor reportedly wrote in her dissent to the majority’s denial of a stay of execution.