Alabama Execution Witnesses Report ​“Violent Thrashing” of Prisoner and More Than 225 ​“Agonized Breaths” in Nitrogen Gas Execution

On October 23, 2025, Alabama exe­cut­ed Anthony Boyd, despite his unwa­ver­ing claim of inno­cence and a fiery dis­sent authored by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, renew­ing the seri­ous con­cerns that have been con­sis­tent­ly raised about the state’s use of nitro­gen gas. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, dis­sent­ed from the Court’s October 23, 2025, denial of a stay of exe­cu­tion, writ­ing that Alabama’s use of nitro­gen gas ​“vio­lates the Constitution by inflict­ing unnec­es­sary suf­fer­ing[.]” Justice Sotomayor not­ed sev­en peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed by nitro­gen gas since the January 2024 exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Smith, and argued that the Court should have pre­vent­ed Mr. Boyd from becom­ing the eighth.

In the Court’s dis­sent, Justice Sotomayor not­ed that Mr. Boyd would remain con­scious for ​“up to sev­en full min­utes of [] excru­ci­at­ing suf­fo­ca­tion,” dur­ing which he would expe­ri­ence ​“intense psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ment” while suf­fo­cat­ing against the pri­mal instinct to breathe. In fact, Mr. Boyd was con­scious for more than twice that amount of time. Justice Sotomayor wrote that use of this method would amount to ​“super­added psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ment” that ​“goes well beyond what is inher­ent in any con­sti­tu­tion­al method of exe­cu­tion.” Justice Sotomayor said the prob­lems present in each of the state’s pre­vi­ous nitro­gen gas exe­cu­tions — where each indi­vid­ual exhib­it­ed con­tin­ued con­scious­ness and intense shak­ing and thrash­ing — raised enough con­cern to ques­tion the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of nitro­gen gas executions.

According to media wit­ness­es, Mr. Boyd’s exe­cu­tion was the longest nitro­gen gas exe­cu­tion thus far, tak­ing near­ly 40 min­utes for Mr. Boyd’s time of death to be announced. Journalist Lee Hedgepeth, who has wit­nessed sev­er­al nitro­gen gas exe­cu­tions, took a detailed account of Mr. Boyd’s exe­cu­tion. At 5:50pm, cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers opened the cur­tains to the exe­cu­tion cham­ber, and Mr. Boyd spoke his last words.

At 5:55, a prison offi­cial checked the gas mask attached to Mr. Boyd’s face and his spir­i­tu­al advi­sor began to read aloud from his Bible. Two min­utes lat­er, at 5:57, media wit­ness­es report­ed that Mr. Boyd began to ​“vio­lent­ly react, thrash­ing against his restraints.” According to Mr. Hedgepeth, Mr. Boyd’s eyes rolled back, and he con­tin­ued to con­vulse, lift­ing his legs from the gur­ney. By 6:00, Mr. Boyd’s move­ment stead­ied, but he ​“began a series of deep, ago­nized breaths that last­ed for more than 15 min­utes, each break shud­der­ing Boyd’s restrained head and neck.” According to Mr. Hedgepeth’s account, Mr. Boyd gasped more than 225 times. At 6:16 Mr. Boyd was still draw­ing deep breaths. Within a few min­utes, accord­ing to the Montgomery Advertiser there was no move­ment. Prison offi­cials announced Mr. Boyd’s time of death at 6:33pm.

In 2018, the Alabama leg­is­la­ture passed a bill autho­riz­ing the use of nitro­gen gas in exe­cu­tions and gave death row pris­on­ers 30 days to des­ig­nate whether they would be exe­cut­ed by nitro­gen gas or lethal injec­tion. Mr. Boyd ini­tial­ly agreed to have nitro­gen gas used as his exe­cu­tion method before there was a pro­to­col or any infor­ma­tion about how it would be used; he lat­er attempt­ed to revoke this deci­sion because he had lacked suf­fi­cient infor­ma­tion to make an informed deci­sion at the time. His coun­sel filed a legal chal­lenge in July 2025, con­test­ing Alabama’s use of nitro­gen gas on two con­sti­tu­tion­al grounds: that the exe­cu­tion method itself con­sti­tutes cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment pro­hib­it­ed by the Eighth Amendment; and that the state’s with­hold­ing of an unredact­ed pro­to­col denies him due process.

Chief U.S. District Judge Emily Marks denied Mr. Boyd’s chal­lenge and request for a stay of exe­cu­tion. Counsel for Mr. Boyd appealed this deci­sion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit which denied his request for a stay of execution.