Supreme Court Rules that Texas Must Allow Death-Row Prisoner’s Pastor to Touch and Pray Over Him During His Execution

On March 24, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed low­er court orders that had denied a Texas death-row prisoner’s request for his pas­tor to touch him and audi­bly pray dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. In rul­ing for John Henry Ramirez (pic­tured), the Court empha­sized Texas’ abil­i­ty to pre­vent any delay of his exe­cu­tion by sim­ply cre­at­ing rea­son­able pro­ce­dures to allow Ramirez the accom­mo­da­tions he seeks. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opin­ion of the court, joined by sev­en oth­er Justices. Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dis­senter, char­ac­ter­iz­ing Ramirez’s pur­suit of post-con­vic­tion lit­i­ga­tion as a ​“his­to­ry of seek­ing unjustified delay.”

Prior to his September 8, 2021 exe­cu­tion date, Ramirez request­ed that his pas­tor ​“lay hands” on him and ​“pray over” him dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. When this request was denied by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Ramirez filed suit in fed­er­al court, argu­ing that Texas intend­ed to vio­late his First Amendment right to free exer­cise of reli­gion and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (“RLUIPA”). A Texas fed­er­al dis­trict court denied Ramirez’s request for a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 

In an order released near­ly three hours after Ramirez’s exe­cu­tion was sched­uled to begin, the Supreme Court halt­ed Texas’ planned exe­cu­tion of Ramirez and agreed to review his claim. It was the fourth time since 2019 that the Court had stayed an exe­cu­tion based on a dis­pute over the exer­cise of reli­gion in the death cham­ber, but the first time it had sched­uled any of those cas­es for full brief­ing and argu­ment. The Court had not grant­ed stays of exe­cu­tion for any oth­er rea­sons dur­ing that time period.

At oral argu­ment, the Justices appeared trou­bled by the impli­ca­tions of Texas’ pol­i­cy on reli­gious free­dom but also con­cerned about ​“last-minute lit­i­ga­tion” by death row prisoners.

In the Court’s opin­ion grant­i­ng relief, it reject­ed Texas’ argu­ments that Ramirez had failed to exhaust avail­able reme­dies and that the chal­lenge did not arise from Ramirez’s sin­cere reli­gious beliefs. The Court then con­sid­ered whether Texas’ ban on audi­ble prayer and touch in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber was the ​“least restric­tive means of fur­ther­ing [a] com­pelling gov­ern­ment inter­est.” Citing an ami­cus curi­ae brief sub­mit­ted by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Court rec­og­nized that ​“there is a rich his­to­ry of cler­i­cal prayer at the time of a prisoner’s exe­cu­tion, dat­ing back well before the found­ing of our Nation.” The Court also not­ed that until recent­ly Texas had per­mit­ted audi­ble prayer and phys­i­cal touch in the execution chamber.

In light of this his­to­ry, the Court found that Texas had pro­vid­ed weak argu­ments that a ban on audi­ble prayer and touch­ing was the least restric­tive method to pre­serve the safe­ty and solem­ni­ty of the exe­cu­tion cham­ber. The Court not­ed that through sim­ple reg­u­la­tions com­mu­ni­cat­ed in advance of the exe­cu­tion, Texas could address its safe­ty and secu­ri­ty con­cerns. As a result, the major­i­ty con­clud­ed that Ramirez would like­ly pre­vail on the mer­its of his RLUIPA claim and that the oth­er pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion fac­tors justify relief. 

Though join­ing the major­i­ty opin­ion, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Brett Kavanaugh wrote sep­a­rate con­cur­ring opin­ions. Justice Sotomayor empha­sized the respon­si­bil­i­ty of prison admin­is­tra­tors to pro­vide time­ly notice of exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures and to decide on exe­cu­tion-relat­ed requests in time for con­demned pris­on­ers to chal­lenge such deci­sions. She not­ed that Ramirez had not been time­ly noti­fied of Texas’ restric­tions on spir­i­tu­al advi­sors and that Texas took 39 days to resolve Ramirez’s ini­tial griev­ance. Justice Sotomayor con­clud­ed that pris­on­ers should not ​“be penal­ized for delays attrib­ut­able to prison administrators.” 

Justice Kavanaugh focused on the his­to­ry of the Court’s han­dling of exe­cu­tion-relat­ed reli­gious rights cas­es, the impor­tance of con­sid­er­ing juris­dic­tions’ pri­or prac­tice in assess­ing Ramirez’s claim, and guid­ance for the states. He sug­gest­ed that ​“to avoid per­sis­tent future lit­i­ga­tion and the accom­pa­ny­ing delays, it may behoove States to try to accom­mo­date an inmate’s time­ly and rea­son­able requests about a reli­gious advisor’s pres­ence and activ­i­ties in the exe­cu­tion room if the States can do so with­out mean­ing­ful­ly sac­ri­fic­ing their com­pelling inter­ests in safe­ty, secu­ri­ty, and solemnity.”

Justice Clarence Thomas filed a lone dis­sent, stat­ing his belief that Ramirez not only failed to sat­is­fy his bur­den by fail­ing to prop­er­ly exhaust his admin­is­tra­tive claims, but also only aimed to con­tin­ue to delay his execution.