Supreme Court Rules for Condemned Inmate Who Sought Pastor’s Touch

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Courtroom dominated on Thursday that Texas might not for now execute a death-row inmate until his pastor can contact him and pray aloud within the execution chamber.

Writing for almost all, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. mentioned that states might institute limits on such practices however that outright bans are most probably unacceptable.

“If non secular advisers are to be admitted into the execution chamber, it might additionally appear cheap to require some coaching on procedures, together with any restrictions on their actions or conduct,” he wrote. “When a non secular adviser would enter and should go away could possibly be spelled out.”

“If the adviser is to the touch the prisoner, the state may additionally specify the place and for the way lengthy,” he wrote, including that states can impose limits on audible prayer “to keep away from disruption.”

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.

The inmate, John Henry Ramirez, was sentenced to demise for the homicide of a comfort retailer employee in 2004. Mr. Ramirez stabbed the employee, Pablo Castro, 29 instances in a theft that yielded pocket change.

In jail, Mr. Ramirez cast a relationship with Dana Moore, the pastor of Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, Texas. Mr. Ramirez requested that his pastor be allowed to the touch him and pray out loud with him as he dies.

When jail officers rejected his request, citing safety considerations, Mr. Ramirez sued. He mentioned the coverage violated his proper to train his religion in the intervening time when, as his lawyer put it in a short, “most Christians imagine they may both ascend to heaven or descend to hell — in different phrases, when non secular instruction and follow is most wanted.”

Decide David Hittner of the Federal District Courtroom in Houston dominated in opposition to Mr. Ramirez, saying it was sufficient that jail officers meant to permit Mr. Moore “to face close by in the course of the execution.” Courts shouldn’t change into entangled, Decide Hittner wrote, within the minutia of jail safety procedures.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, upheld the decrease courtroom’s choice. In dissent, Decide James L. Dennis questioned Texas’ new coverage, which permitted non secular advisers to be current within the demise chamber however prohibited them from touching or praying aloud with the condemned inmates.

“What function is there for permitting a non secular adviser, like a pastor, to be current within the execution chamber if that pastor is prohibited from attending to the non secular wants of the condemned in the course of the remaining moments of his life, by means of audible prayer, bodily contact or in any other case?” Decide Dennis wrote. “On the finish of life, what does a pastor do however minister to and luxury his parishioner?”

The Supreme Courtroom has taken quite a lot of approaches to fits wherein demise row inmates requested that their non secular advisers be current to consolation them throughout their executions.

In 2019, for example, the courtroom allowed by a 5-to-4 vote the execution of an Alabama inmate, Domineque Ray, a Muslim whose request that his imam be current had been denied. On the time, Alabama allowed solely a Christian chaplain employed by the jail system to supply non secular steering to condemned inmates throughout their final moments.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenters in 2019, mentioned the bulk was “profoundly incorrect.” Beneath Alabama’s coverage, she wrote, “a Christian prisoner might have a minister of his personal religion accompany him into the execution chamber to say his final rites.”

“But when an inmate practices a unique faith — whether or not Islam, Judaism or every other — he might not die with a minister of his personal religion by his facet,” Justice Kagan wrote.

A number of weeks later, the courtroom confronted the same case from Texas and got here to a unique conclusion, staying the execution of a Buddhist inmate whose request that his non secular adviser be current within the execution chamber had been denied.

In a short, unsigned order, the courtroom mentioned that Texas couldn’t execute the inmate, Patrick H. Murphy, “until the state permits Murphy’s Buddhist non secular adviser or one other Buddhist reverend of the state’s selecting to accompany Murphy within the execution chamber in the course of the execution.”