Michael Barajas

After justices warned of prolonged suffocation, Alabama subjected Anthony Boyd to the longest nitrogen execution in U.S. history. Boyd was the chairman of Project Hope, a death row-led nonprofit. Its members are left reeling in the wake of their leader's suffocation execution.

Just over an hour after 3 Supreme Court justices warned that Alabamian Anthony Boyd would suffer psychological torture, he was subjected to the longest nitrogen gas execution in US history, gasping for air more than 225 times. Read my eyewitness account: www.treadbylee.com/p/after-just...

Take out your phone, go to the clock app, and find the stopwatch. Click start. Now watch the seconds as they climb. Three seconds come and go in a blink. At the thirtysecond mark, your mind starts to wander. One minute passes, and you begin to think that this is taking a long time. Two . . . three . . . . The clock ticks on. Then, finally, you make it to four minutes. Hit stop. Now imagine for that entire time, you are suffocating. You want to breathe; you have to breathe. But you are strapped to a gurney with a mask on your face pumping your lungs with nitrogen gas. Your mind knows that the gas will kill you. But your body keeps telling you to breathe. That is what awaits Anthony Boyd tonight. For two to four minutes, Boyd will remain conscious while the State of Alabama kills him in this way. When the gas starts flowing, he will immediately convulse. He will gasp for air.

SCOTUS just allowed Alabama's execution of Anthony Boyd:
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Justice Sotomayor wrote this vivid dissent blasting AL for using the method of nitrogen gas.

@laurengill.bsky.social's reporting from an AL execution shows you why: boltsmag.org/alabama-nitr...

Alabama plans to execute Anthony Boyd tonite by suffocating him with nitrogen gas, an experimental method that appears to be agonizing by most available witness accounts

read Lauren's important reporting on Boyd's case and the death penalty in Alabama boltsmag.org/alabama-nitr...

Ahead of Mayor Race, Noncitizen New Yorkers Grapple with a Voting Policy Failure to Launch - Bolts For a brief moment, it seemed some noncitizen New Yorkers may gain the right to vote locally. But with the law struck down earlier this year, they remain at the margins.

For @boltsmag.org, I wrote about one group that, despite being a huge chunk of the adult population in NYC, is uniformly excluded from electoral coverage: noncitizens. A 2021 law promised many could participate in municipal elections for the first time, before it was challenged and struck down

‘The Video Speaks for Itself.’ An Historic Murder Case Puts San Antonio Officers on Trial. San Antonio police officers had never been charged with murder for an on-the-job shooting. Now, a courthouse is packed for an historic trial.

I’m guessing you haven’t even hard of this case: San Antonio Police Officers shot and killed Melissa Perez in 2023.

Now, her daughter is hoping a criminal trial will mark the first time murder charges stick for on-duty officers in the city.

thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/16/s...

He Was Convicted Entirely On Clashing Eyewitness Testimony. Alabama Plans to Execute Him Next Week. - Bolts No physical evidence connected Anthony Boyd to a 1993 murder. He was sent to death row on the word of a co-defendant who testified under the threat of capital punishment.

Everything about this case shows how easy it is to send someone to death row.

Anthony Boyd was sentenced to death entirely on dubious eyewitness testimony. His lawyer had a month to prepare for trial. Alabama plans to execute him next week.

My latest @boltsmag.org:
boltsmag.org/anthony-boyd...

also worth noting that Boyd is set to be executed by nitrogen gas, an experimental method that involves suffocating people to death

read Lauren's bracing eyewitness account of this grisly new method of execution boltsmag.org/alabama-nitr...

He Was Convicted Entirely On Clashing Eyewitness Testimony. Alabama Plans to Execute Him Next Week. - Bolts No physical evidence connected Anthony Boyd to a 1993 murder. He was sent to death row on the word of a co-defendant who testified under the threat of capital punishment.

Anthony Boyd was sent to death row for murder with no physical evidence but rather on the word of a codefendant who testified against him to avoid execution. Boyd’s court-appointed lawyer admitted he was unprepared at trial

important new story by @laurengill.bsky.social boltsmag.org/anthony-boyd...

Inside the Clunky Elections to Control Pennsylvania's Supreme Court - Bolts The GOP is making an expensive push to end Democrats’ majority on a court at the center of election lawsuits, sparking a fledging campaign season with little precedent or template.

Dispatch from Pennsylvania on a highly unusual state Supreme Court election—one of the few most consequential matters on the ballot anywhere in the country next month. New from me in @boltsmag.org: boltsmag.org/pennsylvania...

Exonerations Grind to a Halt Under Chicago’s New Prosecutor - Bolts Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has weakened her office’s already broken system for freeing the innocent, even as allegations of coercion mount against a former Chicago detective.

If you want to see how much a single local official can change things, look no further than Chicago,

where the new prosecutor this year has ground exonerations to a halt by hindering the work of the commission that reviews wrongful convictions boltsmag.org/chicago-cook...

Bid to Renew Federal Grant Sparks Concern Boston May Help Trump’s DHS on Immigration - Bolts The grant helps fund a law enforcement center that’s drawn criticism over privacy and over data-sharing with ICE. It would also come with new strings to spend money on border control.

Boston's Michelle Wu has attracted notice for standing up to Trump on ICE raids. But her stance is undermined by the city's fusion center, which civil liberties advocates have warned abt for yrs: "The whole purpose of it is federal & local law enforcement collaboration."
boltsmag.org/boston-polic...

Here's part two of my Denying Innocence series on the failures by Cook County prosecutors to investigate innocence claims. Thanks to our friends @boltsmag.org for copublishing.

revelations about cops planting evidence, threatening or coercing witnesses, and torturing people into false confessions have made Chicago the epicenter of the wrongful conviction crisis

yet prosecutors are weakening their response, even as another police abuse scandal looms over dozens of cases

"Godsend" or "concentration camp"? A lucrative ICE deal divides a Colorado town. Trump has unleashed a gold rush among private prison companies taking on immigration detention. In cash-strapped cities, residents aren’t sure the money is worth it.

"It’s a blueprint for authoritarianism wrapped in barbed wire and dressed up as local revival.”

ICE has its eyes on an idle Core Civic-owned prison in Walsenburg. Local officials have welcomed the potential influx of money and jobs. But residents are pushing back. My latest for @motherjones.com:

“If children can record everyday events with ease, law enforcement cannot claim hardship to record perhaps its most consequential investigative act"

here's how some state supreme courts are bolstering protections based on their own state constitutions even as SCOTUS rulings erode our rights

some really clarifying reporting here on this shooting that you're sure to read and hear a lot of very inaccurate things about

just before reading this i heard my local public radio station reference this as a shooting by multiple protesters

For Third Year, California Kills Bill to Help Incarcerated Domestic Violence Survivors - Bolts Advocates in California have pushed for relief for people convicted of harming their abuser, hoping to build on states across the political spectrum that have adopted such reforms.

NEW: California was on track to pass a law this year that'd bring a path out of prison for some survivors of domestic violence who've been convicted of harming their abuser.

But the bill ended up dying in the state Senate as the session drew to a close this summer. Bolts reviews what happened:

Journalist Mario Guevara Speaks - Letter from ICE DETENTION FACILITY — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER The only journalist detained by ICE on US soil, sends a letter to The Bitter Southerner.

Chilling dispatch from Mario Guevara, the journalist trapped in ICE detention for...doing his job.

Harris: No. In Texas, you get “reviewed” every six months, but it’s a kangaroo court. When we arrive for the review, the denial forms are already filled out; we just sign to acknowledge we were told “no.” They never tell you what you need to do to get out or when you might be released. Ask when you’re getting out and they’ll tell you, “When we say so.” I watched friends get denied year after year because they were trans or gay and refused to grow their hair to what the system deemed “feminine length.” The not knowing eats at you. The first few reviews, you’re excited: this is it, they’re letting me out. But slowly it dawns on you they have no intention of releasing you when you start meeting people who’ve been in the hole for decades. Eventually you stop going to your reviews because you refuse to participate in their sick game. (Editor’s note: Lawsuits by people subjected to years and decades of solitary confinement in Texas prisons claim these perfunctory reviews reinforce a system of indefinite isolation.)

People who are thrown in solitary confinement aren't told how long they'll spend there.

Some people end up there—for years. There are so few restrictions.

Read how this Texan who's experienced this describes it: boltsmag.org/designed-to-...

“Designed to Break You:” Two Incarcerated Writers on the Heavy Toll of Solitary Confinement The authors of a new book on solitary answer questions about their experiences with isolation and the movement to end the tortuous practice.

NEW in Bolts: The authors of a new book on solitary confinement answer questions about their experiences with isolation and the movement to end the tortuous practice.

“Isolating people inside a small, closet-like cell for weeks, months, and even years on end remains common inside this country’s prisons and jails, even though the United Nations defines the practice as torture.”

boltsmag.org/designed-to-...

Under this GOP Measure, All of Missouri’s Recent Popular Initiatives Would Have Failed - Bolts Republicans have dominated Missouri’s legislature for over two decades, but they haven’t entirely controlled state lawmaking, in large part because Missouri empowers citizens to petition for ballot re...

Missourians have repeatedly used ballot initiatives to adopt policies that lawmakers in the GOP supermajority refuse to move on: abortion rights, paid sick leave, Medicaid expansion. In response, Missouri Republicans are attempting to make direct democracy impossible:

boltsmag.org/missouri-ame...

The Prison Next Door - Bolts How Arkansas’ secretive plan for a new state lockup angered residents in a deep red corner of rural America—and changed how some see incarceration.

"We don’t want this mega prison in this state. We don’t need this mega prison in this state.”

New must-read from @boltsmag.org:
boltsmag.org/arkansas-pri...

The Prison Next Door - Bolts How Arkansas’ secretive plan for a new state lockup angered residents in a deep red corner of rural America—and changed how some see incarceration.

For @boltsmag.org & @thenation.com, I went to the farms, livestock sale barns, and roadside bars of Arkansas and the prison towns of Upstate New York to report on how rural communities are changed (or changing) when a prison comes to town.

boltsmag.org/arkansas-pri...

Superintendent of Chicago’s youth jail might not live here, records show Leonard Dixon has run the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center — one of the largest youth jails in the country — for a decade. Records and interviews suggest he might not live in Chicago an...

19 people say they were sexually assaulted under Leonard Dixon – a Chicago superintendent who draws a $280,000 yearly salary and whose public records trail, including voting records, ties him to suburban Detroit.

Amazing work here by @kellygarcia.bsky.social:

www.injusticewatch.org/juvenile-cou...

Four deaths in two weeks: What’s behind the surge in violence at one Texas prison

www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investi...

Abbott revived this bill by amending his special session call to effectively admit it's broader in scope than GOP and police proponents have been publicly saying

it's back on the calendar, could come up today

more on why Uvalde families are against it www.uvaldeleadernews.com/articles/edi...

We're finishing up our weekly newsletter at @boltsmag.org.

It's full of info on: today's elections, latest on redistricting, homelessness sweeps, DA races, voting rights restoration, prison reforms...

If you want to follow local politics & policy, you should be on this! boltsmag.org/newsletter

good thread here on the TX police secrecy bill that derailed yesterday (but some are already vowing to revive)

it would make more police files secret, undermine voter-mandated reforms in Austin, and help the state cover up its bungling response in Uvalde www.uvaldeleadernews.com/articles/edi...