I am not a fan of the death penalty. After the now disbarred Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong withheld exculpatory DNA evidence and made false statements during the Duke lacrosse case, I realized I did not want the state to have such power over life and death.
That being said, I also acknowledge the death penalty is the law of the land in some states and is — in some instances — warranted.
In 1993, Gregory Huguley was abducted by Anthony Boyd and several accomplices. They forced Huguley into a van at gunpoint and drove him to a nearby softball field. Huguley was then tied to a bench and weighed down with cinderblocks before he was doused in gasoline and burned alive.
Why? Over a $200 drug debt.
Appellate courts upheld Boyd's conviction, and Boyd was scheduled to be executed via nitrogen gas. Boyd appealed the manner of his execution to the Supreme Court, arguing he wanted to die by firing squad instead. That is not a method of execution used in Alabama.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority had denied a petition by Boyd, who has spent three decades on death row over his role in a 1993 murder, to stop his execution by nitrogen asphyxiation and instead kill him by firing squad.Support for the death penalty in the U.S. is near a 50-year low around 53%, according to a 2024 Gallup poll.
Capital punishment is currently permissible in 27 of the 50 states, and last year four states - Alabama, Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma - carried out about three quarters of the country's 25 executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The Supreme Court denied Boyd's request for a stay, and while the majority didn't issue an opinion, the three Leftist Justices did.
Sotomayor's dissent in the nitrogen gas execution case tonight is... well, this is how it starts...https://t.co/GpDXSj5xqo pic.twitter.com/ZXK0iFCfbs
— Maurice Chammah🍹🎻 (@MauriceChammah) October 24, 2025
There can, and should, be a spirited debate on the death penalty, including the use of nitrogen gas as a method of execution.
The problem is this: that discussion cannot take place when the Left — time and again — hold up the worst offenders as victims of an unfair justice system.
You know who else was suffocating for minutes, struggling to breathe? Gregory Huguley. He was doused with gasoline, restrained, and then set on fire. So not only was breathing difficult, but he was in excruciating pain the entire time.
Anthony Boyd killed a man by setting him on fire for $200.
— ¡El SooperMexican! ن c137 🦬 (@SooperMexican) October 24, 2025
How long do you think it takes a man to die when he’s set on fire?
How do you think his family feels about the pain and agony his victim felt?
It's a slap in the face to families, as we saw when President Biden commuted the death row sentences of dozens of inmates before he left office earlier this year.
And therein lies the problem. For far too long, the Left has been soft on crime and more compassionate towards criminals than their victims and those victims' families. When we have Democrat district attorneys, attorneys general, and politicians lecturing us on the need to be "compassionate" to guys like Decarlos Brown Jr. (with 14 prior arrests) or Courtney Boose (with 99 prior arrests), the public isn't going to tolerate those injustices forever.
They are going to demand harsher punishments. They are going to start meting out street justice. They are going to push back on a system that routinely protects the guilty at the expense of the innocent.
If Justice Sotomayor and her fellow dissenters wish to see change, they need to show deference to the victims, not the criminals.