The Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday regarding a case about a man who desired to have his pastor lay hands on him and pray out loud during his execution.
The death row inmate, John Henry Ramirez, 37, was convicted of fatally stabbing a man during a convenience store robbery in Corpus Christi, Texas, that occurred in 2004.
The justices had different reactions to the request. Some reportedly stated that it was a humble one that honored the man’s right to practice his religion as he died. Others were concerned about this leading to more special petitions for the execution chamber.
“What’s going to happen,” Justice Samuel Alito asked, “when the next prisoner says that I have a religious belief that he should touch my knee? He should hold my hand? He should put his hand over my heart? He should be able to put his hand on my head?”
As reported by The New York Times:
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked about requests to have more than one spiritual adviser in the execution chamber and about last-minute conversions to new faiths. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh asked about a request for “bread and wine in the execution room.” Justice Alito worried that judges would be required “to go through the whole human anatomy” to decide where touching was permitted.
Some justices were more sympathetic. “You should have a pastor to help guide you to the other place,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.
However, Seth Kretzer, the lawyer for Ramirez, argued that Texas had permitted physical touch and prayers to be said aloud by spiritual persons during 572 executions over forty years through 2019.
Justice Kavanaugh stated, “that does not move me at all,” since the spiritual personnel at those executions worked for the prison and were therefore not a potential danger.
Kavanaugh added that an execution is “a very fraught situation with a lot of potential for issues.”
According to Slate, Kavanaugh also said to Kretzer, “People are moving the goal posts on their claims in order to delay executions…At least, that’s the state’s concern.”
Later on, he added, “This is a potential huge area of future litigation across a lot of areas—sincerity of religious claims. How do we question those? Some things people have talked about are the incentives someone might have to be insincere, behavioral inconsistencies … the religious tradition of the practice. What do we look at to check sincerity? Because that’s a very awkward thing for a judge to do, to say: ’I want to look into the sincerity of your claim.’ But our case law says we must do that.”
Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly asked, “If we think that Mr. Ramirez has changed his request a number of times and has filed last-minute complaints, and if we assume that that’s some indication of gaming the system, what should we do with that with respect to assessing the sincerity of his beliefs?”
The SCOTUS Blog added, “Kretzer pushed back against the premise of Thomas’ question, telling the justices that Ramirez has ‘always asked as quickly as possible’ for relief and that his religious beliefs are both sincere and ‘consistently stated.’”
The Times added, “Eric J. Feigin, a lawyer for the federal government who argued in support of neither side, drew distinctions that seemed to appeal to some of the justices. He said audible prayers from spiritual advisers were common at recent federal executions, but touching was rare and should not be allowed once the lethal chemicals were being administered.”
Federal prison officials, he said, “would have very, very substantial concerns about that because of the risk of either advertent or inadvertent disruption of the IV lines.”
“Someone could faint, someone could stumble, and you could jostle the lines,” he said.
As reported by The Daily Wire in September, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the execution of Ramirez because his desire to have his pastor lay hands on him and say prayers as he died was not fulfilled.
According to Politico, “Prosecutors say Ramirez stabbed Castro 29 times during a series of robberies in which the inmate and two women sought money following a three-day drug binge. Ramirez fled to Mexico but was arrested three and a half years later.”
The convict’s lawyer, Seth Kretzer, said that in refusing to allow the inmate to have his pastor touch him and say prayers during his execution, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was going against Ramirez’s First Amendment rights to practice his religion.
“It is hostile toward religion, denying religious exercise at the precise moment it is most needed: when someone is transitioning from this life to the next,” Kretzer reportedly said in court papers.
The Supreme Court’s order was different from previous rulings from lower courts.
“[The Texas Department of Criminal Justice] has a compelling interest in maintaining an orderly, safe, and effective process when carrying out an irrevocable, and emotionally charged, procedure,” U.S. District Judge David Hittner previously ruled, according to the Texas Tribune.
The district judge noted that TDCJ “will accommodate Ramirez’s religious beliefs by giving Ramirez access to his pastor on the day of execution and allowing him to stand nearby during the execution.”
Dana Moore, the pastor at Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, who became a spiritual adviser to Ramirez over the past several years, wrote about the situation in an affidavit previously filed in court.
“I understand that I will be able to stand in the same room with John during his execution, but I will not be able to physically touch him,” Moore wrote. “I need to be in physical contact with John Ramirez during the most stressful and difficult time of his life in order to give him comfort.”
Ramirez’s execution has been called off two times before due to a change in attorney and the coronavirus pandemic.
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Source: Dailywire
