Alabama: Anthony Boyd executed with nitrogen – despite massive doubts about his guilt

On Thursday evening, 54-year-old Anthony Todd Boyd was executed by nitrogen hypoxia in the US state of Alabama. He was sentenced to death for allegedly killing a man with three accomplices in 1993 over a 200-dollar debt for cocaine. The victim was tied to a park bench with duct tape, doused with gasoline and set on fire.

Boyd maintained his innocence over the decades – but his alibi, confirmed by witnesses, that he had been at a party, was unsuccessful. The jury found him guilty by 10 votes to 2. One of the alleged accomplices had made a deal with the public prosecutor’s office, testified against Boyd and received a correspondingly lenient sentence – he was released in 2009.

Apart from his incriminating testimony, there is no forensic evidence that Boyd was even at the crime scene. In his final words, he stated: “I want to say again that I did not kill anyone and I did not participate in any murder. I want everyone to know that there is no justice in this state.”

Executions using nitrogen

Anthony Boyd was executed using nitrogen – pure nitrogen is added via a mask so that the delinquent suffocates due to the lack of oxygen. While proponents of the method claimed in advance that it was a peaceful death in which the person would lose consciousness within seconds, eyewitness reports since the method was first used in January 2024 paint a completely different picture.

Boyd’s spiritual adviser, Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, who was present in the execution room in the same capacity at the first nitrogen execution, had stated at the time that he had never seen anything more horrific – and he had already witnessed several executions by lethal injection.

He subsequently reported that Boyd’s execution had taken considerably longer than expected – the media witnesses also confirmed that Anthony Boyd breathed for between 15 and 20 minutes under the mask.

Rev. Hood observed that the mask apparently did not seal properly with Boyd’s face, so that he was probably able to breathe in small amounts of oxygen from the surrounding air for several minutes.

Questionable choice of execution method

Alabama forced its death row inmates into a choice of execution method after legalizing nitrogen hypoxia in 2018. Due to several problematic lethal injection executions, some inmates chose the new nitrogen method.

The choice was made at a time when nitrogen killing had not yet been tested – a change in their decision after the first reports of nitrogen executions became known was not permitted. For example, the Supreme Court of the United States rejected by 6 votes to 3 an application by Anthony Boyd requesting that he be executed by firing squad instead of nitrogen.

Anthony Boyd was chairman of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, the only prisoner-led anti-death penalty organization in the United States founded by inmates in Alabama.

Sources:
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/10/23/alabama-execution-anthony-todd-boyd/86861744007/
https://eji.org/news/anthony-boyd-alabama-execution/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s1N16iLEuo&t=8768s
https://www.phadp.org/