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USA - Alabama. Anthony Boyd, 54, Black, was executed on October 23
October 23, 2025: October 23, 2025 - Alabama. Anthony Boyd, 54, Black, was executed on October 23
By nitrogen suffocation
Boyd was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. local time at William C. Holman Correctional Facility. The execution was carried out by nitrogen gas, a controversial method Alabama began using last year.
Boyd was sentenced to death in 1995 for his role in killing Gregory Huguley in 1993. Prosecutors said Huguley was set on fire after he didn't pay for $200 worth of cocaine.
According to court documents Anthony Boyd along with Shawn Ingram and Marcel Ackles would kidnap Gregory Huguley. Huguley would later be murdered by being doused with gasoline and set on fire. Apparently, Boyd duct taped the victim’s feet together and another man committed the actual murder.
Shawn Ingram was sentenced to death, and Marcel Ackles to life without parole
Anthony Boyd would insist that he is innocent of the murder of Gregory Huguley with his lawyers insisting that he was not at the murder
Boyd used his final words to proclaim his innocence and criticize the criminal justice system.
"I didn't kill anybody. I didn't participate in killing anybody," he said. "There can be no justice until we change this system," he continued, before closing with, "Let's get it."
The execution appeared to take longer than prior nitrogen gas executions. The state does not reveal the exact time the gas began flowing.
At about 5:57 p.m., Boyd clenched his fist, raised his head off the gurney slightly and began shaking. He then raised his legs off the gurney several inches. At about 6:01 p.m., those movements stopped, and he began a series of heaving breaths that lasted at least 15 minutes before becoming still.
On Thursday, Boyd had nine visitors, two phone calls, accepted his breakfast, refused his lunch and dinner, and declined a final meal request, the Alabama Department of Corrections said in a news release.
Boyd requested to meet with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, during a news conference on Wednesday hosted by the Execution Intervention Project and his spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood. Boyd said in a recorded message that the governor should "come sit down" with him and "have a conversation with the guy you deemed one of the worst of the worst."
A prosecution witness at Boyd's trial testified as part of a plea agreement and said that Boyd taped Huguley's feet together before another man doused him in gasoline and set him on fire. Defense lawyers said he was at a party on the night Huguley was killed.
A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder during a kidnapping and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive a death sentence.
Boyd had been on Alabama's death row since 1995. He was the latest chair of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, an anti-death penalty group founded by men on death row.
Alabama began using nitrogen gas last year to carry out some executions. The method uses a gas mask strapped over the inmate's face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing the person to die from lack of oxygen.
Nationally, the method has now been used in eight executions: seven times in Alabama and once in Louisiana.
Boyd's lawyers had asked a federal judge to halt the execution to give the method more scrutiny. A federal judge declined the request. She ruled Boyd was unlikely to prevail on claims that the method, which has been used multiple times, is unconstitutionally cruel.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon also denied Boyd's request to stay the execution and instead let him die by firing squad. Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored a scathing dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Sotomayor, citing witness description of past nitrogen gas executions, wrote that there is "mounting and unbroken evidence" that the method is unconstitutional. She wrote that "allowing the nitrogen hypoxia experiment to continue" fails to protect the dignity of the nation.
Earlier this year, Boyd pushed for execution by firing squad, hanging or medical-aid-in-dying instead, arguing nitrogen hypoxia is unconstitutionally cruel.
Alabama has maintained that any shaking or gasping exhibited by inmates during nitrogen gas executions are largely involuntary actions caused by oxygen deprivation.
Boyd becomes the 5th person executed this year in Alabama, the 4th this year in Alabama using nitrogen gas, the 83rd since the state resumed executions in 1983, the 40th person to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,647th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alabama-execution-anthony-boyd-1993-murder-nitrogen-gas-execution/ (Source: CBS News, 23/10/2025)
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