Court turns down man's request to die by firing squad

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Source: SCOTUSblog

COURT NEWS
Court turns down man’s request to die by firing squad

By Amy Howe
on Oct 23, 2025

The Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon turned down a request from an Alabama inmate to block his execution, which is scheduled for today. In an unsigned order, the justices denied Anthony Boyd’s plea to put his execution on hold and to decide whether executing him by nitrogen hypoxia would violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Boyd had asked to be executed by a firing squad instead. As is customary in cases involving requests for emergency relief, the court did not provide any explanation for its decision.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the court’s decision to allow the execution to go forward. In a nine-page opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor wrote that “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.”

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Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Court turns down man’s request to die by firing squad, SCOTUSblog (Oct. 23, 2025, 7:18 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/10/court-turns-down-anthony-boyd-request-to-die-by-firing-squad/

Read more: https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/10/court-turns-down-anthony-boyd-request-to-die-by-firing-squad/