Niamh Shackleton
A death row inmate made a very clear statement ahead of his execution last week.
On October 23, Anthony Todd Boyd became the state of Alabama's seventh inmate to be put to death this year.
Boyd received the death sentence for the 1993 murder of Gregory Huguley.
Huguley was taped up and burned alive over a $200 cocaine debt. Boyd was just 21 years old at the time of the murder. While Boyd did not set the man alight, he's said to have helped bind Huguley to a park bench before others doused him in fuel.
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Boyd has always maintained his innocence, which is something he doubled down on in the moments leading up to his death last week.
He told prison staff: "I just wanna say again, I didn't kill anybody, I didn't participate in killing anybody."
Boyd added: "I just want everyone to know, there is no justice in this state."
Noting that his numerous appeals were turned down, the convicted criminal went on, per Metro Online: "It’s all political, it’s all revenge-motivated. There is no justice in the state, there can be no justice in the state."
He closed his poignant statement with: "I want all my people to keep fighting, you all matter. Let’s get it."
Ahead of his death, Boyd is said to have requested to die by firing squad, but he passed by nitrogen gas instead.
The execution method has long sparked debates over how long it takes for the inmate to die, with some branding it as 'intense psychological torment'.
Boyd had his spiritual advisor, Rev. Jeff Hood, with him when he died. He said that the way the inmate was killed was 'torture'.
"We shouldn't do this to anybody," Hood told USA Today, adding: "We are better than this. We are better than suffocating people to death."
According to Hood, Boyd was fighting for his life for almost 20 minutes before he was eventually pronounced dead.
Last year, Alabama became the first state to use nitrogen gas as a means of killing inmates. The likes of Louisiana and Arkansas have since followed suit.
In the hours leading up to Boyd's execution, the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices condemned the use of nitrogen gas and described it as 'intense psychological torment'.
Addressing the majority decision on Boyd's request to postpone his death and to die by firing squad, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said: "Boyd asks for the barest form of mercy: to die by firing squad, which would kill him in seconds, rather than by a torturous suffocation lasting up to four minutes.
"The Constitution would grant him that grace. My colleagues do not."