From Newsgroup: alt.obituaries
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/us/alabama-nitrogen-execution-anthony- boyd.html
Lengthy Execution by Nitrogen Gas in Alabama Renews Concerns Over Method
Anthony Boyd was the eighth person executed by nitrogen gas since Alabama began using the method last year. His execution came over the strenuous objection of three liberal Supreme Court justices.
By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
Oct. 24, 2025
Updated 5:55 p.m. ET
Alabama executed a man using nitrogen gas on Thursday night, causing him
to gasp for an extended period of time and spurring more concerns over the execution method, which was used for the first time in the United States
last year.
The man, Anthony Boyd, 54, was put to death at a prison in Atmore, Ala.,
for the 1993 killing of a man who had owed him and others money.
The U.S. Supreme Court had declined to intervene, over the strenuous
objection of the courtrCOs three liberal justices. In a dissent issued Thursday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor described nitrogen hypoxia as a rCLcruel form of executionrCY that should not be allowed to continue.
Witnesses described seeing Mr. Boyd convulse and heave for about 15
minutes before being pronounced dead about 15 minutes later. He was the
eighth person killed by the use of nitrogen gas, which proponents of the method had said they hoped would be more humane than lethal injection,
since Alabama first used it in January 2024.
Prison officials there do not disclose exactly when they turn on the gas
that flows into a prisonerrCOs mask, which makes it impossible to know
exactly how long the execution takes. The protocol calls for keeping the nitrogen flowing for five minutes after a prisonerrCOs heart has stopped beating.
rCLHe was sitting there, suffocating, trying to breathe for 19 minutes,rCY said the Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual adviser to Mr. Boyd who was in the execution chamber and has witnessed several other executions, including by nitrogen gas.
Alabama became the first state to use nitrogen gas in an execution in
January 2024, after it and other states had problems procuring the
necessary drugs for lethal injections. Proponents of the method say that nitrogen hypoxia is less painful and less prone to error, but witnesses
have at times described difficult-to-watch scenes in which prisoners
writhe on the gurney before they are pronounced dead.
Mr. Boyd had chosen the nitrogen method over lethal injection in 2018,
when prisoners were given a month to choose. But he later challenged its
use, arguing earlier this year in court that the method was cruel and that
the staterCOs protocol was inadequate.
Mr. Boyd had been convicted of murder in the 1993 group kidnapping and
killing of Gregory Huguley, who purportedly had owed the group $200 for cocaine. A jury found that Mr. Boyd, who was 21 at the time, had
participated in the kidnapping, in which Mr. Huguley was bound and taped
to a park bench, where another member of the group doused him in gasoline
and lit him on fire. The man who was convicted of lighting the fire
remains on death row in Alabama.
Mr. BoydrCOs execution was the 40th in the United States this year, the highest number since 2012, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center. Six more are scheduled to take place before the year ends.
Annual executions had been on a general decline since a peak of 98 in
1999, but the number has risen significantly this year, driven in large
part by Florida, which has executed 14 people. There is also new pressure
from the Trump administration to pursue executions. On his first day in office, President Trump told the Justice Department to encourage state and local prosecutors to seek the death penalty for all capital crimes.
Louisiana became the second state to use nitrogen in an execution in
March. Three other states have also approved the method, but have not yet
used it. Supporters say that it can be preferable to lethal injection, the method used in several botched executions, and that nitrogen is easier to procure.
One state, South Carolina, has also employed the firing squad, a method
used rarely in modern times, to kill two men on death row this year.
In Alabama on Thursday, Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, issued a statement in which she described the harrowing nature of Mr. HugueleyrCOs death.
Larry David Takes the Stage for an Amusing but Not-So-Revealing Chat
rCLAfter 30 years on death row, Anthony BoydrCOs death sentence has been carried out, and his victimrCOs family has finally received justice,rCY she said.
Mr. Hood, the spiritual adviser and a death penalty opponent, was also in
the room for the January 2024 nitrogen execution, of Kenneth Smith, and
said Mr. BoydrCOs execution had rCLmade KennyrCOs look tame.rCY
John Hamm, the commissioner of AlabamarCOs prison system, acknowledged at a news conference that he believed ThursdayrCOs execution was the staterCOs longest by nitrogen but that he considered it to have followed the staterCOs protocol.
Lee Hedgepeth, a journalist in Alabama who witnessed the execution, said
he counted Mr. Boyd gasp for air more than 225 times before he was
pronounced dead.
Justice SotomayorrCOs dissenting opinion was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In it, Justice Sotomayor urged people to open
the stopwatch app on their phone and run it until it reached four minutes.
rCLNow imagine for that entire time, you are suffocating,rCY she wrote. rCLYou want to breathe; you have to breathe. But you are strapped to a gurney
with a mask on your face pumping your lungs with nitrogen gas.rCY
That, she warned, was what awaited Mr. Boyd.
In Mr. BoydrCOs final statement from the gurney, according to Mr. Hedgepeth and reporters from The Associated Press and AL.com, he said that he was innocent and that he had not participated in killing anyone. He said that
his execution was motivated by rCLrevengerCY and that it was not about closure rCLbecause closure comes from within.rCY
rCLLetrCOs get it,rCY he concluded.
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