Alabama inmate Anthony Boyd executed using nitrogen gas

An Alabama man convicted in the 1993 burning death of another man was executed using nitrogen gas hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request to halt the execution.

Anthony Todd Boyd, 54, was executed by nitrogen gas at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. He had sought to die by firing squad instead, arguing that Alabama’s new nitrogen hypoxia method would cause prolonged suffering.

Boyd was convicted of capital murder in the 1993 killing of Gregory Huguley, a 25-year-old man from Anniston.

Prosecutors said Boyd and three accomplices abducted Huguley over a $200 cocaine debt, drove him to a baseball field in Talladega County, tied him to a bench, and doused him with gasoline before setting him on fire. Witnesses testified that Huguley was burned alive as the group watched.

Governor Kay Ivey said she declined to exercise clemency and directed officials to proceed with the “lawfully imposed death sentence.”

“After 30 years on death row, Anthony Boyd’s death sentence has been carried out, and his victim’s family has finally received justice,” Ivey said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the court’s decision to deny Boyd’s appeal, calling nitrogen hypoxia a “torturous suffocation lasting up to four minutes.”

In his final statement, Boyd maintained his innocence, saying, “I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t participate in killing anybody,” according to AL.com. He added, “There’s no justice in this state… it’s revenge motivated,” before concluding, “Keep fighting… I love every single one of y’all.”

Boyd’s execution marks the eighth carried out in the United States using nitrogen gas and the seventh in Alabama since the method was introduced last year.