Religious Leaders Explain Why They Minister to Death-Sentenced Prisoners During Executions

Reverend Melissa Potts-Bowers, the spir­i­tu­al advi­sor to Michael Tisius, recent­ly described her expe­ri­ence min­is­ter­ing to him dur­ing his exe­cu­tion as ​“quite hor­ri­fy­ing — as it’s intend­ed to be.” Mr. Tisius was exe­cut­ed by the state of Missouri on June 6, 2023.

Rev. Potts-Bowers’ rela­tion­ship with Mr. Tisius began when she was his min­is­ter and pen pal and con­tin­ued after she became a hos­pice chap­lain. At the time of his exe­cu­tion, she had been his spir­i­tu­al advi­sor for more than twen­ty years. In the days lead­ing up to his exe­cu­tion, she said that Mr. Tisius often spoke hope­ful­ly about his legal peti­tion, where his lawyers claimed new­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence that one of the jurors in his case was illit­er­ate in vio­la­tion of Missouri law, and his clemen­cy peti­tion, which was dec­o­rat­ed with some of his art­work (pic­tured). Rev. Potts-Bowers said that her expe­ri­ence as a hos­pice chap­lain helped her to pre­pare Mr. Tisius for his impend­ing exe­cu­tion, and they spoke at length about faith and the afterlife. 

Rev. Potts-Bowers was present in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber on the day of his exe­cu­tion. ​“He said to me: ​‘I’ve got a lot of faith. I’m not bit­ter — but I am ter­ri­fied.’ He was full-on ter­ri­fied, so he begged me not to stop talk­ing. That’s what I did. I put my hand on his shoul­der, as I was instruct­ed to do, and held him fast. I said: ​‘Michael, don’t for­get what we’ve talked about. You’re loved, you’re for­giv­en and you have peo­ple on the oth­er side who are wait­ing right now to wel­come you. Just go straight to the light.’ I didn’t have to talk very long. He was gone quick­ly. But I con­tin­ued to speak until the guard came in and escort­ed me out.” 

Rev. Potts-Bowers was one of sev­er­al min­is­ters who spoke about their expe­ri­ences at the annu­al meet­ing of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. Rev. Jeff Hood, who was present at the exe­cu­tions of Scott Eizember in Oklahoma in January and Arthur Brown in Texas in March, explained that he viewed the deci­sion to min­is­ter through an exe­cu­tion as an eth­i­cal conun­drum, as it could make him feel ​“com­plic­it.” But he added, ​“I do believe in the min­istry of pres­ence. And I believe that God has called us to be in those moments to love peo­ple, and to be love, in a space of great evil.”

“It’s sub­ver­sive to say, ​‘I love you’ in a place that’s designed for death,” said Rev. Lauren Bennett, asso­ciate pas­tor at Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis. ​“It’s sub­ver­sive to put your hands on some­one who’s being killed and remind them of all the peo­ple who love them.”

Rev. Darryl Gray, the senior pas­tor at Greater Fairfax Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis, also described strug­gling with feel­ing com­plic­it when he was present dur­ing Kevin Johnson’s exe­cu­tion in Missouri last November. However, he stat­ed that he did not want Mr. Johnson to be alone, so he accom­pa­nied him ​“because Kevin’s life was worth it, the sacred­ness of human life was worth it.” He added, ​“You don’t for­get it. You don’t get over it. It’s not some­thing that you do and then it’s left in that death chamber.”

“Those of us who are fol­low­ing the path of Christian faith cer­tain­ly see that in our leader, we have that as part of our teach­ing,” said Rev. Potts-Bowers. ​“Being present, being there, stand­ing with those who are oppressed is one of the most impor­tant things we can do. So for me, remain­ing in that cham­ber is one of the most impor­tant priv­i­leges for us to protect.”

The 2022 U.S. Supreme Court rul­ing in Ramirez v. Collier gave death row pris­on­ers the right to have a spir­i­tu­al advi­sor present in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber with them. The spir­i­tu­al advi­sor is allowed to audi­bly pray and place their hands on the pris­on­er as the exe­cu­tion pro­ceeds, so long as they do not inter­fere with the execution itself.

Despite this, Missouri state offi­cials refused to allow Raheem Taylor to have his Muslim spir­i­tu­al advi­sor present dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. Officials orig­i­nal­ly claimed that he had missed the dead­line to have one appoint­ed but could not point to an offi­cial pol­i­cy stat­ing the dead­line. Rev. Hood recalled sim­i­lar efforts to pre­vent him from remain­ing with Mr. Eizember dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. He explained, ​“We real­ly pushed back against the state of Oklahoma. You still have reli­gious free­dom in the death cham­ber. Religious free­dom extends to that moment.”