Anthony Boyd's execution poses question about morals: Minister

(NewsNation) — A minister says Anthony Boyd's execution should raise questions about the morality of using nitrogen to execute condemned prisoners.

"We're talking about an unbelievable extended amount of time for a person to die," the Rev. Jeff Hood, who was also Boyd's spiritual adviser and was in the death chamber with him, told Ashleigh Banfield on Monday.

Boyd, a condemned Alabama man who fatally set a man on fire in 1993, was subjected to the longest nitrogen execution in U.S. history last week after a majority of the Supreme Court denied the request by three justices for a stay of execution to challenge the method the state would use to kill him: suffocation through the use of a nitrogen gas mask.

The court’s dissenting justices speculated Boyd would be deprived of oxygen while conscious for two to four minutes before gasping for air, thrashing against his restraints, and being subjected to “psychological torment.”

Just an hour after the three justices' opinion was issued, officers conducted the execution. Boyd was declared dead 19 minutes after it began.

"And so the question is, you know, who do we want to be?" Hood asked. "Do we want to be a people that are known for suffocating people or not?  It's not about the righteousness of Anthony Boyd. It's a question of righteousness when it comes to us."

State of Alabama 'incredibly incompetent' at killing people: Minister

While Boyd was confirmed dead after just 19 minutes, Hood points out the entire execution actually lasted 37 minutes.

"It's horrifying," he said. "When you see someone gasping for air with a mask over their face, going from the top of the hairline to underneath the chin and seeing them thrash back and forth ... looking literally like a fish that is on the dock, ultimately just succumbing to a lack of oxygen."

Hood also scolded the state of Alabama for its system when executing people. Other states are using "firing squads, lethal injection, and these executions are going off fairly quickly compared to this," acknowledged Hood.

"You're talking about a higher level of torture with regards to nitrogen executions," he said. "And I'm convinced that if people got the opportunity to see these nitrogen executions for themselves, they would never want another one to happen in this country again."

In 2018, Boyd chose "nitrogen hypoxia" for how he wanted to be executed before he changed his mind and asked to be hanged or be executed by a firing squad.