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One Alabama An inmate convicted of killing a man over a drug debt was scheduled to be executed Thursday evening, the latest death sentence carried out by nitrogen gas in the state.
Anthony Boyd, 54, was sentenced to death for his role in the murder of Gregory Huguley in Talladega County more than 30 years ago. Prosecutors said Huguley was doused with gasoline and set on fire after he refused to pay for $200 worth of cocaine.
Boyd will be executed Thursday evening at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in southern Alabama.
The method, which Alabama began using last year, involves placing a gas mask over an inmate’s face to replace the air they breathe with pure nitrogen gas, causing the person to die from lack of oxygen.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon rejected a request to stay Boyd’s execution and instead allowed him to die by firing squad. Justice Sonia Sotomayor Wrote a sharp dissent, joining Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson,
Sotomayor, citing witness accounts of past nitrogen gas executions, wrote that there is “mounting and irrefutable evidence” that the method is unconstitutional. He wrote that “allowing the nitrogen hypoxia experiment to continue” fails to protect the dignity of the nation.
Alabama has stated that any shuddering or gasping displayed by prisoners during nitrogen gas executions are largely involuntary actions caused by lack of oxygen. Nationally, this method has been used in seven executions: six times in Alabama and once in louisiana,
A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder during a kidnapping and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he be given the death penalty for his role in the murder of Huguley, whose burned body was found in a rural Talladega County ballfield on August 1, 1993. Prosecutors said Boyd was one of four men who had kidnapped Huguley the previous evening.
Boyd was convicted when a prosecution witness testified as part of a plea agreement that Boyd stuck tape on Huguley’s legs before another man poured gasoline on him and set him on fire.
Boyd has maintained his innocence.
“I didn’t murder anyone. I didn’t participate in any murders,” Boyd said by telephone during an October 8 news conference organized by supporters.
Defense attorneys said Huguely was at a party the night he was killed and that the plea agreement’s testimony is unreliable. Boyd’s supporters put up several billboards across the state urging Alabama to stop the executions.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office previously said in a statement that Boyd’s case has been litigated for three decades and, “he has yet to provide evidence to show that a jury got it wrong.”
Boyd has been on Alabama’s death row since 1995. He is the President of Project Hope to Abolish death penaltyAn anti-death penalty group founded by people on death row.
Shawn Ingram, the man whom prosecutors accused of pouring gasoline on and then setting Huguley on fire, was also sentenced to death. He is also on death row.
Rev. Jeff Hood, who was previously the spiritual advisor at Nitrogen Execution, will serve as Boyd’s spiritual advisor. Hood, who has also witnessed several lethal injections, said that the nitrogen execution was “the most gruesome I have ever seen”.