Texas allows spiritual advisers into the execution chamber but bars them from praying audibly or being by the condemned inmate’s side. In its arguments to the Supreme Court, Texas said granting Ramirez’s request would be a step toward enabling federal courts to “micromanage” details of execution protocol.
In some cases, states still employing capital punishment have made adjustments to comply with court orders regarding spiritual advisers.
In February, for example, the Supreme Court blocked Alabama from executing Willie Smith III — convicted of the 1991 abduction and murder of a 22-year-old woman — unless it allowed his personal pastor to be present in the execution chamber. Alabama complied; Smith was executed Oct. 21 with the pastor, Robert Wiley, by his side.
Efforts to provide condemned prisoners with spiritual comfort at their executions have been ecumenical.
In 2019, the Supreme Court blocked Texas from executing a Buddhist prisoner unless he was allowed to have a Buddhist priest at his side. The same year, the high court allowed Alabama to execute a Muslim inmate, Domineque Ray, even though his spiritual adviser was not allowed to be present; the court said Ray was too late in making his request.
In the past year, Yusuf Nur, a Muslim professor of business who teaches at Indiana University Kokomo, was the spiritual adviser at two federal executions of Muslim inmates. He was present — and permitted to say a traditional Islamic prayer aloud — for the executions of Orlando Hall in November 2020 and Dustin Higgs in January 2021.
“When I first got recruited to talk to a young guy who accepted Islam in prison, I went to see him,” Nur told The Associated Press. “My feeling was that if this person wants somebody to talk to, and the U.S. government is planning to execute him, I’d do whatever I can to contribute so they’re spiritually strong.”
Nur, who opposes capital punishment, said he was moved by the atmosphere in the death chamber for Hall’s execution, given that the others present were “people who came to execute him.”
“To have a friendly face makes a difference to the person being executed,” Nur said. “I’m glad I did it even though it was traumatic to witness a human being killed right in front of your eyes. I would do it again.”
Nur has shared his convictions with Battista, whose order — the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods — is based just 10 miles from the federal prison complex in Terre Haute. All four lethal injections she and Nur attended were part of the federal government’s unprecedented run of 13 executions in six months at the end of the Trump administration.
