In a haunting final statement, Alabama death row inmate Anthony Boyd proclaimed his innocence just moments before being executed by nitrogen gas.
“I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t participate in killing anybody,” Boyd asserted, maintaining his innocence up until his last breath.
“There can be no justice until we change this system… Let’s get it,” he added, advocating for systemic reform.
Boyd, aged 54, was convicted in 1995 for his role in the horrific 1993 murder of 32-year-old George Huguley. The crime was reportedly motivated by a $200 cocaine debt.
According to the jury, Boyd was involved in tying and taping Huguley to a bench at a baseball field in Alabama. The victim was then soaked in gasoline by another accomplice and set ablaze.
The jury found that Boyd participated in binding and taping Huguley to a park bench at an Alabama baseball field. Another member of the group doused him in gasoline and set him on fire.
Prosecutors acknowledged that Boyd didn’t actually set the fire that killed Huguley, according to USA Today.
However, the other three men testified against Boyd. The man who prosecutors said poured the gasoline and set the fire was also convicted of capitol murder and is on death row.
Anthony Boyd was put to death Thursday after more than 30 years on death row
Protestors in Alabama were vocally about their disapproval of his death
Boyd has maintained that he was at a party at the time of the killing. In his final statement he said that his execution was motivated by ‘revenge.’
After more than 30 years at William C. Holman Correctional Facility, Boyd was finally strapped to a table and put to death using nitrogen, after his request to be killed by firing squad was denied.
Witnesses said that Boyd’s execution appeared to last longer than usual. The inmate was fitted with an face mask through which the nitrogen was pumped to starve his body of oxygen, .
Moments into the execution, he clenched his fists, raised his head, and began to shake, said witnesses.
He raised his legs off of the bed by several inches. Boyd convulsed and heaved for 15 minutes before falling completely still, according to the New York Times.
He was pronounced dead at 6.33pm. Executers cannot reveal how long the nitrogen was running before his heart stopped beating.
Boy was held at William C. Holman Correctional Facility after being convicted for aiding to burn a man alive
Boyd begged Alabama Governor Kay Irvey to meet with him ‘before an innocent man is killed.’ She declined and released a statement following his death.
‘His victim’s family has finally received justice,’ she said, in part, according to USA Today.
The Supreme Court voted against intervention, but in dissent Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the method a ‘cruel form of execution.’
‘Boyd asks for the barest form of mercy: to die by firing squad, which would kill him in seconds, rather than by a tortuous suffocation lasting up to four minutes,’ she said.
Boyd was the seventh inmate in Alabama to be killed with the use of nitrogen gas. The state made history by becoming the first to use this method of execution in January 2024.
Nitrogen suffocation was designed to be a more humane practice than lethal injection, which was the most widely used execution method for many years.
Critics have said that death by nitrogen is inhumane
His spiritual advisor Rev. Jeff Hood said that Boyd appeared to be conscious and fighting for his life for 19 minutes during the execution.
‘It’s torture,’ Hood told the outlet. ‘We shouldn’t do this to anybody. We are better than this. We are better than suffocating people to death.’
Boyd had chosen the method of nitrogen gas over lethal injected when inmates were given a month to choose in 2018. But he’s since challenged the use, arguing that it was cruel.
Protestors in Alabama campaigned against the death penalty the day before Boyd’s execution. The Execution Intervention Project advocated against his death.
On his first day in office Donald Trump told the Justice Department to encourage prosecutors to seek the death penalty before capital crimes.
Boyd’s execution was the 40th in the United States this year, according to Death Penalty Info. Six more are scheduled to take place.
This year has seen the most executions since 2012 when 43 inmates were put to death.
