Alabama executed Anthony Todd Boyd, 54, with nitrogen gas on the evening of Oct. 23, 2025, at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to stop the execution, over a dissent by its three liberal justices.

The case

Boyd was convicted of capital murder for the 1993 killing of Gregory Huguley in Talladega County. Prosecutors said Huguley was kidnapped and set on fire over a $200 cocaine debt. A key witness, who testified in exchange for a plea deal, told jurors that Boyd helped bind Huguley before another man doused him with gasoline. The jury voted 10–2 for a death sentence. Boyd, on death row since 1995, maintained his innocence to the end. "I didn't kill anybody. I didn't participate in any killing," he said in his final statement.

How nitrogen executions work

In a nitrogen hypoxia execution, a mask is strapped over the prisoner's face and the air is replaced with pure nitrogen, causing death by oxygen deprivation. Alabama carried out the first one in January 2024, and Louisiana adopted the method in 2025. Boyd's was the eighth nitrogen execution in the U.S. — seven in Alabama, one in Louisiana.

The Supreme Court dissent

Boyd's lawyers asked the courts to halt the execution, or to let him die by firing squad instead. The Supreme Court refused. In a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that "mounting and unbroken evidence" from witnesses to earlier nitrogen executions — describing prisoners convulsing and thrashing against their restraints — showed the method was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment (Reuters, via Yahoo News).

The execution

Boyd took about 20 minutes to die, according to the Associated Press, with witnesses describing a long series of heaving breaths. Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said he believed Boyd's movements were involuntary and that the execution took only "a few minutes past some of the others." Attorney General Steve Marshall said Boyd had presented no evidence that he was wrongly convicted (AP, via KSAT; Catholic News Agency, via National Catholic Register).

What happened next

Alabama has continued to schedule executions by nitrogen in 2026, and legal challenges to the method continue in the courts. Supporters say nitrogen offers a reliable alternative as lethal-injection drugs have become harder to obtain; opponents point to witness accounts like those from Boyd's execution.

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