The US state of Texas has planned to execute Wednesday, September 8 a death row inmate who wishes to be touched by his pastor during his passage from life to death.
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Unless justice grants him a last-minute reprieve, John Ramirez, 37, must receive a lethal injection in the evening, 17 years after stabbing a store worker in a burglary in the south of this conservative state. A member of a Baptist church, he took the courts to demand that his pastor could put his hands on his body during the execution and pray aloud. Texan prison authorities allow the presence of a spiritual advisor in the death chamber, but the latter must remain silent and at a distance for “
security
”
reasons
.
After suffering setbacks at first instance and on appeal, John Ramirez on Monday appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States to ask it to suspend his execution pending a decision on the merits of the case. His pastor Dana Moore of the Second Baptist Church “
explained under oath that placing his hands on a dying person and vocalizing his prayers during the passage from life to death was an integral part of the rites he wishes to perform on John Ramirez in the part of their common faith
, ”explained his lawyers.
The high court, which has six conservative magistrates out of nine, has sometimes been sensitive to the religious arguments of those condemned to death.
During its 2020-2021 session, it gave the green light to almost all executions planned by federal or state authorities, except in the case of convicts deprived of a chaplain in the death chamber.
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If it does not offer a respite to John Ramirez, he will be the sixth convict executed this year in the United States.