‘You Are Suffocating’: SCOTUS Justice Sonia Sotomayor Pens Bizarrely Emotional Dissent
“Take out your phone, go to the clock app, and find the stopwatch,” Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor opens her October 23 dissent. Sotomayor was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Click Start. Now watch the seconds tick up. Three seconds come and go in the blink of an eye. After thirty seconds, your mind starts to wander. A minute passes and you start to think this is taking a long time. Two… three… The clock is ticking. Then, finally, you get to four minutes. Press stop.”
It is not simply a meditation exercise. This is Sotomayor’s utterly melodramatic argument against the execution of Anthony Boyd by means of nitrogen gas. (RELATED: 9/11 Attackers May Face Death Penalty, Court Rules)
Boyd was convicted of capital murder for “intentional murder during a first-degree kidnapping,” according to a 1997 court document. The jury returned an advisory verdict recommending the death penalty. Boyd maintains his innocence.
“I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t participate in the killing of anyone,” Boyd said at his execution, according to the New York Post.
Boyd was convicted of participating in the murder of Gregory Huguley, aka “New York,” in 1993, following a dispute over cocaine worth $200. Boyd duct-taped Huguley’s feet while another man duct-taped her hands and mouth, according to court documents. Another man doused Huguley with gasoline, setting the victim on fire.
Boyd and his co-conspirators”I watched “New York” burn for 10-15 minutes until the flame went out. During the fire, the “New York” rolled a few meters. Then, at that point, he died as a result of the fire,” the documents state.
What did Anthony Boyd do to deserve such a fate?
Oh, that’s right. https://t.co/5vfNFWnLdW pic.twitter.com/QNW25sbgNn
– Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) October 24, 2025
But back to Sotomayor’s bloody story.
“Now imagine that all this time you’re choking. You want to breathe; you have to breathe. But you’re strapped to a gurney with a mask over your face pumping your lungs with nitrogen. Your mind knows the gas is going to kill you. But your body keeps telling you to breathe. That’s what awaits Anthony Boyd tonight.”
One wonders if Boyd’s victim suffered similarly in his final moments – desperately gasping for air, hot smoke filling his lungs, flames boiling and charring his skin.
Sotomayor argues that performing nitrogen anoxia is a form of “intense psychological torment.”
“Boyd asks for the simplest form of mercy: to die by firing squad, which would kill him in seconds, rather than by torturous suffocation lasting up to four minutes. The Constitution would grant him this mercy. My colleagues do not. This Court thus turns its back on Boyd and the Eighth Amendment’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment,” Sotomayor wrote.
Anthony Boyd burned a man alive for more than $200. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson call for firing squads for Mr. Boyd’s death sentence rather than gas, because gas would be inhumane. The gas, they claim, adds terror to the death penalty. Maybe! Yet no mention of the crime. . . pic.twitter.com/F8cGWKmhFk
– Eric W. (@EWess92) October 24, 2025
The cruelty of death from nitrogen anoxia remains a matter of debate. A 2024 article published in Experimental Physiology purports to “demonstrate” that nitrogen anoxia is “inherently inhumane.” The authors’ opinion should be taken with a pinch of salt: they begin by expressing their opposition to all arguments according to which “the death penalty and state execution are somehow humane.
A 2019 review of the scientific literature on nitrogen gas in capital punishment, published in Jurimetrics Journal, concludes that, under current case law, “the use of nitrogen hypoxia is a feasible method of capital punishment.”
The Sarco module, more commonly known as the “suicide module”, kills its voluntary victim by asphyxiation with nitrogen gas, causing anoxia. The creator, Philip Nitschke, maintains that death by nitrogen gas is a great way to die.
“The person who wants to die presses the button and the capsule is filled with nitrogen. They will feel a little dizzy but then quickly lose consciousness and die,” Nitschke told the Guardian in 2018.
Nitschke obviously has a vested interest in promoting the benign nature of death from nitrogen anoxia. It is impossible to fully describe the degree of agony or peace a dying person feels in their final moments. (RELATED: Catholic bishops urge Biden to spare all those on death row before leaving office)
We must fight against cruel and unusual forms of torture. But this concern is often used as a bludgeon to attack the legality of capital punishment. The execution seems quite unpleasant. It doesn’t matter how you do it.
Anthony Boyd, 54, was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. at Alabama’s William C. Holman Correctional Center, according to the New York Post, citing authorities. He died of nitrogen anoxia.
Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC
