Alabama’s execution of Anthony Boyd last Thursday went as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor predicted it would.
In her dissent (joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson) to the Court’s refusal to grant a stay of execution to give Boyd time to challenge the state’s use of nitrogen gas as its execution method, and allow him to be killed by firing squad, Sotomayor wrote, “For two to four minutes, Boyd will remain conscious while the State of Alabama kills him in this way.
“When the gas starts flowing, he will immediately convulse. He will gasp for air. And he will thrash violently against the restraints holding him in place as he experiences this intense psychological torment until he finally loses consciousness. Just short of twenty minutes later, Boyd will be declared dead.”
“Boyd asks for the barest form of mercy: to die by firing squad, which would kill him in seconds, rather than by a torturous suffocation lasting up to four minutes. The Constitution would grant him that grace. My colleagues do not.”
Lee Hedgepeth, who witnessed Boyd’s execution, described it as the “longest nitrogen suffocation execution in the method’s history, exceeding even the worst expectations of the court’s minority,” in his newsletter, Tread. During the 37 minutes it took to kill Boyd, Hedgepeth estimated that he “gasped for air inside the gas mask more than 225 times.”
Alabama switched to nitrogen gas after at least four recent botched executions using lethal injection. Boyd’s was the seventh execution by nitrogen gas since the state began using the method in January, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The 54-year-old Boyd was executed for the 1993 group killing of Gregory Huguley, who reportedly owed the group money, the New York Times reported. The group kidnapped Huguley, and bound and taped him to a park bench. A group member who was convicted of dousing him with gasoline and setting him on fire is on death row in Alabama. Boyd maintained his innocence, and DPIC reported that Alabama’s medical examiner “testified that there was no physical evidence linking Mr. Boyd to the crime.” He was convicted by a jury vote of 10 -2, according to DPIC.