Anthony Boyd is scheduled to be executed in Alabama this fall using nitrogen gas, a controversial method of execution. File Photo by Alabama Department of Corrections.
Aug. 19 (UPI) -- Alabama is moving forward with the execution of Anthony Boyd using nitrogenous gas, a new method that's been criticized as inhumane.
Gov. Kay Ivey announced in a statement sent to local media that Boyd, 53, will be executed in late October for his role in burning a man to death more than three decades ago. The state became the first state last year to execute people using nitrogen gas, a method that involves causing the condemned to die from a lack of oxygen.
Attorneys for Boyd have argued in court he could suffer painful complications because of his asthma and the method could leave a prisoner alive but with brain damage as well as other injuries, reported AL.com. While Boyd opted for the method in June 2018, his attorneys now say that the state's heavily redacted protocol leaves out information about the process, including what to do when a prisoner remains conscious, according to the news outlet.
In the last five executions in Alabama using nitrogen each prisoner "showed signs of conscious suffocation, terror, and pain," AL.com reported.
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Boyd was convicted for kidnapping and murdering Gregory Huguley in 1993 along with three other men because Huguley owed them $200 for cocaine purchase, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. Boyd and the other men took Huguley to a baseball field outside of Anniston, where they duct taped him to a bench, doused him in gasoline, lit him on fire and watched him burn to death, according to the news outlet.
Ivey does not plan to grant Boyd clemency, reported the Advertiser.
Previously, Ivey has defended the use of nitrogen in executions, saying earlier this year that "You don't come to our state and mess with our citizens and get away with it."
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall also has defended the use of nitrogen in executions. In a press release last year defending the execution of Alan Miller, Marshall called the method "reliable and humane."
Critics of the nitrogen executions include the ACLU and the United Nation's human rights office, which called it a degrading and cruel form of torture that violates international law.
Louisiana became the second state to carry out an execution using nitrogen gas in March. The same month, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill authorizing the use of the execution method.
A group of Arkansas faith leaders announced that they will gather in Little Rock on Thursday to press the governor to rethink the use of the death penalty and to look into whether the use of nitrogen gas in executions amounts to torture.
