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Two years ago, in Dunn vs. Ray (2019), the Supreme Court rejected a request by a Muslim inmate on death row for an imam to provide him with spiritual guidance and comfort during his last moments of life. The decision was 5-4 along ideological lines, but it sparked a widespread backlash across politics spectrum.
As Justice Elena Kagan noted in her dissenting opinion Ray, the state of Alabama allowed Christian inmates to have a spiritual advisor present, but Muslims did not, so the court ruling in Ray allowed unconstitutional discrimination between different faiths. The day after the decision Ray, David French of the conservative National Review called it a “serious violation of the First Amendment.”
On Thursday night, the court made the closest thing it is likely to ever give to an admission as its ruling Ray was wrong. The vote in this new case, called Dunn vs. Smith, is a little uncertain – the Court did not give a majority opinion and two judges did not indicate how they voted – but the result Black-smith is that all states that still apply the death penalty should allow such detainees to have a spiritual advisor present during their execution, regardless of the detainee’s faith. (Both Dunn cases have come to court over the ‘shadow docket’, a bouillabaisse of emergency motions and other matters that are not fully presented and pleaded before the judges rule. on a case.)
Four judges – Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett – joined Kagan’s opinion suggesting that all death row inmates have the right to have their spiritual advisor present during their execution, provided that the counselor passes a security check to make sure that they will not interfere with the operations of the prison. As Kagan’s opinion notes, the Federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) “offers’ extensive protection ‘to prisoners’ religious freedom.”
Notably, Barrett’s decision to join Kagan’s opinion marks the second time in a week that the Tory nominee Trump has broken with the Supreme Court’s most right-wing faction in a religious freedom case.
Justice Clarence Thomas dissociated himself from the Court’s decision in Black-smith without explaining why he would have allowed the execution to proceed without the presence of a pastor. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh were also dissenting. Yet, in an opinion joined by Roberts, Kavanaugh writes that “it seems obvious that states that want to avoid months or years of delays in court proceedings because of this RLUIPA issue should find a way to allow spiritual advisers to enter the execution room, like other states. and the federal government did.
So although Roberts and Kavanaugh disagree with the court’s decision Black-smith, they seem to agree that states should comply with requests to allow an appropriate member of the clergy to comfort those executed.
That leaves justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, who have not disclosed how they voted Black-smith. Both judges are strong supporters of the death penalty. But at least one of them must have provided the fifth vote to allow inmate Willie Smith Black-smith case, to have a pastor present at his execution.
The way of Ray at Black-smith, briefly explained
Ray was a frustrating decision, not only because it allowed for a very clear case of religious discrimination, but because the majority judges did not understand the facts of the case or, worse yet, gave a pretextual reason for their decision.
The Republican majority in the court claimed it had ruled against the inmate Domineque Ray Ray, because he waited too long to ask for help. But, as Kagan explained in his dissent, this claim that Ray waited until the last minute to seek redress was simply not true. Ray filed a lawsuit to have his imam present during his execution just five days after the prison director denied the request.
After Ray sparked a public reaction, the court seemed to be stepping back Murphy vs. Collier (2019), a case involving a Buddhist death row inmate who, like Ray, sought to have a spiritual advisor present during his execution. In Murphy, the court issued an interim order preventing the state from executing Patrick Henry Murphy “unless the state allows Murphy’s Buddhist spiritual advisor or another chosen state Buddhist reverend to accompany Murphy into the chamber execution during execution.
If the full Court did not explain its reasoning in MurphyJudge Kavanaugh wrote a separate concurring opinion stating that states are free to deny spiritual counseling to executed people, as long as they do not discriminate between religions.
“Texas policy in this area allows a Christian or Muslim inmate to have a state-employed Christian or Muslim religious counselor in the execution room. or in the adjacent viewing room, ”Kavanaugh explained, but Buddhist inmates could only have their counselor present in the viewing room. The state could remedy this “denominational discrimination,” Kavanaugh argued, either by allowing people of all faiths to have a spiritual advisor present in the execution room or by allowing no one to have a spiritual advisor present in this room.
Following Kavanaugh’s opinion in Murphy, Alabama decided to implement Kavanaugh’s second option. He abolished his previous policy, which only allowed Christians to have a spiritual advisor present during their execution, and implemented a new policy prohibiting all clergy from entering the execution room.
One of the consequences of this new policy is that Willie Smith, the inmate Black-smith case, was going to be executed without the presence of his Christian pastor.
The outcome of the Court’s decision in Black-smith, however, is that Smith will have a pastor present during his execution, and that in the future all executed people in the United States who want a spiritual advisor to be present during their executions will likely have one. .
Kavanaugh’s point of view – that states are free to deny spiritual guidance to people who are executed, as long as they treat all religions equally – did not lead the day Black-smith. And it appears there are now five votes in the Supreme Court to ensure those on death row have a suitable member of the clergy present in their final moments.
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