The US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an Alabama death row inmate’s plea to be spared the nitrogen gas chamber and be shot to death by a firing squad instead, SCOTUSblog reports.
Anthony Boyd, sentenced to death for his role in the 1993 kidnapping and murder of Gregory Huguley, had pleaded for non-clemency by arguing that executing him by nitrogen hypoxia would violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, something that kind of didn’t work with the court for the previous six condemned inmates who got NITROed. Boyd’s gambit mixed things up by saying he was cool with being killed but only if it was with bullets. Still didn’t work.