Alabama carries out first nitrogen execution as inmate who long maintained innocence dies
Alabama executed Anthony Boyd on Thursday night using nitrogen hypoxia — a little-used method of suffocation — marking a stark moment in the U.S. debate over capital punishment. Boyd, 54, who consistently denied killing 32-year-old Gregory Huguley in 1993, was pronounced dead at 6:33pm Central, the Alabama Department of Corrections said.
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“He was pronounced dead at 6:33pm Central time,” the department announced, closing a case that has simmered for more than three decades and spotlighted deeply contentious questions about the death penalty, experimental execution methods and the reliability of testimony that can determine life or death.
Convicted on decades-old testimony
Boyd was sentenced to death in 1995 after prosecutors said he and three other men abducted Huguley at gunpoint for failing to pay for roughly $200 worth of cocaine. The conviction largely rested on the testimony of a co-defendant, Quintay Cox, who was spared execution under a plea deal. Boyd consistently professed his innocence, a claim that human rights groups and some criminal justice reform advocates have cited in calls for moratoriums on capital punishment.
Details in the case, and the lapse of more than 30 years between the crime and the execution, underscore broader concerns about wrongful convictions and the fallibility of memory and testimony — especially when decades pass and evidence degrades. Legal experts say such delays also compound the moral and legal complexity of executions.
Nitrogen hypoxia: a controversial method
Nitrogen hypoxia involves replacing oxygen with nitrogen through a face mask, causing death by asphyxiation. Alabama adopted the option several years ago as states struggled to obtain lethal injection drugs amid shortages and legal challenges. The method has been denounced by United Nations human rights experts as cruel and inhumane and remains largely untested in practice.
Medical associations and human rights organizations have warned that the procedure is experimental and carries unknown risks of suffering. Critics argue that introducing a novel method of execution evades the transparent, evidence-based review that medical ethics and human rights law demand.
Executions rising in the U.S.; global tide moves the other way
Boyd’s execution was the 40th in the United States this year, the highest number since 2012, when 43 inmates were put to death. Florida led the country with 14 executions, while Texas and Alabama have each carried out five. At the same time, 23 U.S. states have abolished the death penalty outright and several more — including California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.
The contrasting trajectories are emblematic of a polarized national conversation. While a growing number of states move away from capital punishment, others have pressed forward, sometimes adopting new technologies or expanding legal avenues for execution. On the national stage, former President Donald Trump publicly championed capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”
Internationally, the trend has been toward abolition. More than two-thirds of countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The execution in Alabama, and the method used, will likely draw renewed criticism from global human rights bodies and could further isolate U.S. practices from emerging international norms.
Old cases, new technologies, persistent questions
The Boyd case raises familiar and painful questions: How should a justice system weigh testimony from decades-old trials? What responsibility do states have to ensure execution methods are not experimental? And how do societies reconcile victim rights, public safety and the possibility of irreversible error?
For families tied to the case, the answer is often raw and immediate. Some survivors of violent crime call for swift and certain punishment; others urge caution when the stakes are irreversible. For those who have campaigned against Boyd’s execution, his death is a reminder of the long shadow that capital cases can cast — years of appeals, legal wrangling and public debate.
Legal scholars point to systemic issues that persist beyond any single case. Overreliance on plea bargains, inconsistent access to quality legal defense, and prosecutorial practices vary widely across jurisdictions. The use of co-defendant testimony, in particular, has produced miscarriages of justice in several high-profile cases, prompting calls for stronger corroboration requirements or prosecutorial reforms.
What this moment asks of the public
As executions proceed in some U.S. states, the country grapples with evolving legal landscapes and ethical dilemmas. The emergence of nitrogen hypoxia forces questions that are scientific, legal and moral: should the state experiment with novel methods at the point of no return? How should courts and legislatures balance victims’ families’ needs with due process and human rights standards?
Boyd’s death will not settle those questions. Instead, it adds urgency to a national conversation about capital punishment’s future in America — a conversation that involves judges, legislators, medical professionals, advocates and ordinary citizens. At a time when the globe increasingly turns away from state-sanctioned death, the United States remains a patchwork: some states moving toward abolition, others innovating ways to carry out executions.
In the coming months, expect renewed scrutiny of nitrogen hypoxia, potential legal challenges and intensified activism on both sides of the issue. For a country that has repeatedly confronted the possibility of error in capital cases, each execution is a test of the systems that must ensure justice is not only done, but seen to be done.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
