In an emotional dissent, the Supreme Court's liberal wing condemned the use of nitrogen gas to kill condemned criminals as a form of "cruel and unusual punishment."
The fiery dissent came after the court's majority declined to stop the execution of Anthony Boyd, an Alabama man convicted of burning a man to death over a $200 debt, CNN reported.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused her conservative colleagues of prolonging Boyd's suffering by denying his request to die by firing squad.
"The Constitution would grant him that grace,” Sotomayor wrote. “My colleagues do not. This court thus turns its back on Boyd and on the Eighth Amendment’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.”
Sotomayor urged the reader to set a four-minute timer and imagine they can't breathe.
“Now imagine for that entire time, you are suffocating,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “You want to breathe; you have to breathe. But you are strapped to a gurney with a mask on your face pumping your lungs with nitrogen gas.”
“Your mind knows that the gas will kill you,” she continued. “But your body keeps telling you to breathe.”
Boyd is among a handful of people who have been executed with nitrogen since Alabama first used the controversial method in 2024. It was adopted as an alternative to lethal injections, which have become more difficult to perform due to drug shortages.
In her dissent, Sotomayor said the use of nitrogen gas is "not at all what it was promised to be" and that the condemned can experience "up to seven full minutes of conscious, excruciating suffocation."
The Supreme Court did not provide an explanation for denying Boyd's petition. A federal judge who rejected Boyd's request noted the Eighth Amendment "does not guarantee Boyd a painless death" and that those condemned to die inevitably experience feelings of terror.
"Walking to the gallows, feeling the electric chair’s straps tighten, having a target affixed to one’s chest, or being secured to a gurney each evokes strong feelings that death is imminent and results in corresponding psychological and emotional pain," U.S. District Judge Emily Marks wrote.
Witnesses of Boyd's execution Thursday told the New York Times that he convulsed for about 15 minutes before he was pronounced dead.
Boyd's victim, Gregory Huguley, was bound to a bench, doused in gasoline, and burned alive by a group of four men including Boyd, who duct-taped the victim's feet. The killers watched Huguley burn for up to 15 minutes until the fire went out.
Moments before the gas was administered, Boyd maintained his innocence of the crime.
“I just wanna say again, I didn’t kill anybody, I didn’t participate in killing anybody,” Boyd said. “I just want everyone to know, there is no justice in this state.”
