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But Alabama's policy is to have a Christian chaplain in the room, who often kneels beside the sentenced to death and will pray with the detainee when he is sentenced to death. request.
Ray and his lawyers believe that his religious rights were violated and brought the case to court, thereby obtaining a stay of execution on Thursday.
"If Mr. Ray was a non-Catholic Christian, he would have a spiritual advisor of faith," Spencer Hahn's lawyer said Wednesday. "… because he is a Muslim, as if you were a Buddhist, he is treated differently from others, solely because of his religion."
They asked the court that the chaplain be excluded from the hall and that the Imam be present to give spiritual guidance and comfort.
The state says that it is a matter of security and that all those present in the room during executions are correctional service employees. He says he is ready to execute without a religious cleric in the room. He is asking the United States Supreme Court to cancel the stay.
Ray's attorney stated that the Imam was traveling every month with 10 death row inmates and had passed security checks.
Ray, born in 1976, was sentenced to death in 1999 for his role in the rape and murder of a teenage girl in Selma, Alabama. His co-defendant, Marcus Owden, is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole.
Ray always said that he was innocent, said his lawyer
. His lawyer thinks that he became a Muslim in prison. Court documents indicate that Ray has been Muslim since at least 2006.
Hahn plans to file a response to the state's appeal to the Supreme Court Thursday at 11 am.
Ray also has a pending motion regarding his conviction. The petition indicates that Ray's legal team at trial was not informed that Owden was schizophrenic at the time. The document, filed by other Ray's lawyers, asks the Supreme Court to stay the execution.
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