An Alabama man convicted of helping to burn a man alive in 1993 over a $200 drug debt was executed by nitrogen gas on Thursday. Anthony Boyd, 54, was pronounced dead at 6:33pm at William C. Holman Correctional Facility, authorities said. The execution was carried out by nitrogen gas, a method Alabama began using last year, the AP reports. Boyd was sentenced to death for his role in killing Gregory Huguley in Talladega County. Prosecutors said Huguley was set on fire after he didn't pay for $200 worth of cocaine.
A prosecution witness at the 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. 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 always maintained his innocence. Defense lawyers said he was at a party on the night Huguley was killed. "I didn't kill anybody. I didn't participate in any killing," Boyd said by telephone during an Oct. 8 news conference organized by supporters. Boyd had been on Alabama's death row since 1995. He was the latest chair of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, a 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, it 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 is unconstitutionally cruel. The US Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon also denied Boyd's request to stay the execution and instead let him die by firing squad.
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