The case, involving a Christian convert and his Southern Baptist minister, is the latest in ongoing First Amendment disputes over the role of clergy in the death chamber.
A Texas death row inmate won a reprieve Wednesday evening from execution for killing a convenience store worker during a 2004 robbery that garnered $1.25 after claiming the state was violating his religious freedom by not letting his pastor lay hands on him at the time of his lethal injection.
The US Supreme Court blocked John Henry Ramirez’s execution about three hours after he could have been executed. He is condemned for fatally stabbing 46-year-old Pablo Castro, who worked at a Corpus Christi convenience store.
Ramirez was in a small holding cell a few feet from the Texas death chamber at the Huntsville Unit prison when he was told of the reprieve by Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark.
“He was quiet when I let him know,” Clark said. “He shook his head and said: ‘Thank you very much. God bless you.’”
In its brief order, the court directed its clerk to establish a briefing schedule so Ramirez’s case could be argued in October or November.
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 3½ years later.
Seth Kretzer, Ramirez’s lawyer, had argued the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was violating the death row inmate’s First Amendment rights to practice his religion by denying his request to have his pastor touch him and vocalize prayers when he was executed. He called the ban on vocal prayer a spiritual “gag order.”
“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,” ...
from Christianity Today Magazine
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