Alabama cancels execution of Willie B. Smith after U.S. Supreme Court says it must allow inmate to have pastor

Atmore, Alabama – An Alabama inmate was granted a stay on Thursday after a scheduled lethal injection after the U.S. Supreme Court said the state must allow his personal pastor in the death chamber.

Willie B. Smith III’s lethal injection was canceled by Alabama after judges upheld an injunction issued by the U.S. Circuit’s 11th Court of Appeals saying he could not be executed without his presence. pastor in room. Prison Affairs Department spokeswoman Samantha Rose said the execution would not proceed given the ruling. Alabama argued that non-prison staff should not be in the room for security reasons.

“Willie Smith is on death row, and his last wish is to have his pastor with him as he dies,” Judge Elena Kagan wrote in a concurring opinion with three other judges.

“Alabama has not borne its burden of showing that the exclusion of all clergy from the execution chamber is necessary to ensure the security of the prison. Thus, the state cannot now execute Smith without the presence of her pastor, to facilitate what Smith calls the ‘transition between the worlds. of the living and the dead,’ “Kagan wrote. Judge Amy Coney Barrett joined three Liberal justices to let the ruling hold. .

The case was the latest in a series of legal battles against personal spiritual advisers during executions. In 2019, the court suspended the execution of a Texas inmate who said his religious freedom would be violated if his Buddhist spiritual advisor was not allowed to be in the death chamber with him.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh suggested in a dissent that states that want to avoid litigation on the matter “should find a way to allow spiritual advisers to enter the execution room, as have other states and the federal government. “

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall did not immediately comment on the decision to cancel the lethal injection.

After the execution was canceled, Smith was taken from a holding cell by the execution chamber to his cell on death row, a prison spokeswoman said.

Smith, 51, was due to receive a lethal injection in a southern Alabama prison for the 1991 murder of Sharma Ruth Johnson, 22, in Birmingham.

Smith had sought to allow his spiritual advisor, Pastor Robert Wiley, into the execution chamber, which the state does not allow.

“Mr. Smith argued that he believed the point of transition between life and death was important and that the physical presence of his spiritual advisor at this time was integral to his faith, “Smith’s lawyers wrote in court documents. .

In the past, Alabama regularly put a Christian prison chaplain, who was employed by the state, in the execution chamber to pray with an inmate if requested to do so. The state ended the practice after a Muslim detainee asked an imam to attend. The prison system, which did not have a Muslim cleric on staff, said non-prison staff would not be allowed in the room.

Prosecutors said Smith abducted Johnson at gunpoint at an ATM, stole $ 80 from her, and then took her to a cemetery where he shot her in the back of the neck. The victim was the sister of a police detective.

“Over twenty-nine years ago, Smith shot dead a woman whose only crime was to stop using the ATM,” state attorneys wrote in court documents seeking to let the injection deadly unfold.

The judges overturned another stay issued by the 11th Circuit linked to Smith’s intellectual ability. His lawyers argued that the state had not given the man, who has an IQ below 75, required assistance with forms affecting the timing of his execution. The Alabama attorney general’s office in court records disputed that Smith was disabled and called it a last-minute delay maneuver.

Had the execution taken place, it would have been the first by a state in 2021 and one of the few at the state level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. According to the Information Center on the Death Penalty, no state has been executed since July 8.

After a 17-year hiatus on federal executions, President Trump resumed them in July. In December, the US government executed more people in the year than all states that still carry out executions. The United States killed 13 people before President Biden took office, including three this year.