An Alabama death row inmate set to die this week asked the state’s governor to meet with him “before an innocent man is executed.” Anthony Boyd, 53, is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening by nitrogen gas at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility. A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder for the 1993 burning death of Gregory Huguley in Talladega County. Prosecutors said Huguley was burned alive over a $200 drug debt.
A jury convicted Boyd for a murder committed back in 1993. He now faces execution by nitrogen suffocation. Critics continue to call the process experimental and unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. Robin Maher is Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.She says the use of nitrogen hypoxia remains controversial.
‘Well, independent witnesses at every Alabama execution using nitrogen gas have observed troubling behaviors that indicate the prisoner is suffering signs of terror, pain and distress, and those statements are completely at odds with those of prison officials,” Maher asserts.
Boyd, who has maintained he did not commit the crime, made the request to meet with Gov. Kay Ivey, during a news conference hosted by the Execution Intervention Project and his spiritual adviser the Reverend Jeff Hood.
“Before an innocent man is executed, come sit down with me and have a conversation with the guy you deemed one of the worst of the worst,” Boyd said in a recorded message played at the news conference.
Boyd said if Ivey feels he is being deceptive or evasive during that meeting, “then please carry out the sentence.”
“If not, then I ask you to stay this execution, to stop this execution to have my case fully and fairly investigated,” Boyd said.
Mike Lewis, a spokesman for Ivey, said the governor personally reviews each case in which an execution has been ordered and set.
Alabama executed six inmates last year. That’s more than any other state. Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. says the varying accounts of what happens to inmate as they die from nitrogen suffocation remains troubling."
“So, you have to wonder who has more to lose by telling the truth,” said Maher. "This is a procedure the experts say should not be used to even euthanize your pet, because it is likely to cause extreme distress, and it raises serious questions about why Alabama is continuing to use this method.”
Alabama conducted the first execution with nitrogen gas. Louisiana is the only other state to carry out a death sentence this way. Governor Ivey’s office says review her review does not include one-on-one meetings with inmates and called Boyd's request “especially unworkable.” The Republican governor has halted one execution since she took office in 2017.
Victim Gregory Huguley’s burned body was found Aug. 1, 1993, in a rural Talladega County ball field. Prosecutors said Boyd was one of four men who kidnapped Huguley the prior evening. 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. Boyd’s attorneys said he was at a party on the night of the murder.
A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder during a kidnapping and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive a death sentence. Shawn Ingram, the man prosecutors accused of pouring the gasoline and then setting Huguley on fire, was also convicted of capital murder and is also on Alabama’s death row.
Alabama last year began using nitrogen gas to carry out some executions. Boyd’s attorneys have urged the federal courts to halt the execution to scrutinize the new method. A federal judge rejected the request. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday also declined a request by Boyd’s attorneys to stay the execution.
