[ad_1]
John Henry Ramirez was to die on September 8 at six in the afternoon, in the Huntsville (Texas) penitentiary, by means of a lethal injection, a cocktail usually made up of barbiturates and potassium solution that enters the convict’s veins and, if things go according to plan, it kills him in a few minutes. That Wednesday something unusual happened; The Supreme Court of the United States decided to stay the execution at the last minute, following a request, also unusual and that the system of this State does not allow. Ramirez asked to have a pastor inside the chamber at the time of death, who can pray out loud and can put his hands on him. The news of the postponement reached the prisoner almost three hours later, at nine at night. The Ramirez v. Collier case, a case that deals with religious freedom and affects the state that executes the most in the entire country, will be discussed this Tuesday in Washington.
Ramirez, 37, was sentenced to capital punishment for the 2004 murder of a hombre in Corpus Christi, a Texas city three hours from where he is now being held. He was 20 years old and was driving with two friends, drugged and drunk, when they ran into a store worker, Pablo Castro, who was taking out the trash and tried to rob him. He was arrested in 2007, was sentenced the following year and has been on death row at Livingston Correctional Center ever since. He did not convert to religion then, he was already a believer, but he turned to his faith. Baptist pastor Dana Moore got into photography four years ago, when she began visiting him on a regular basis. Today he is one of his great allies in the battle he has waged against a Goliath who does not usually lose.
The inmate’s attorney, Seth Kretzer, regrets that Texas tries to deny something that has always been allowed. “The Nazis were allowed in the Nuremberg trials, in medieval England, even in Texas itself it was normal for decades,” he says.
Texas did allow spiritual counselors until two years ago. He imposed the veto in 2019, after the Supreme Court stopped the execution of another convicted person, Patrick Murphy, on the grounds of the violation of his religious freedom, since the authorities denied the presence of his Buddhist cleric, when it had been possible. a Christian or a Muslim. The reason is that, at that time, Texas accepted the presence of preachers who were part of the prison system staff, but only employed Christians and Muslims, thus other religions were discriminated against. So he chose to ban the presence of anyone.
Last April, the State changed its criteria and lifted the veto on the presence of spiritual advisers within the execution chambers, but on the condition that there is no physical contact between them and the prisoner about to die and that there is no pray out loud. Normally, in an execution, only the condemned person, the guard who reads the order and the doctor who certifies the death have the floor. The State, represented, among others, by the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Bryan Collier (hence the name of the case, Ramirez v. Collier), rejects it on grounds of safety and respect for the deceased himself.
In its written argument, it maintains that contact between someone outside the prison with a convicted person during the lethal injection involves “an unacceptable risk to the security, integrity and solemnity of the execution.” “Even an imperceptible interference with the tracks [de la inyección] It could cause pain in Mr. Ramirez and anguish in the victim’s family, ”he adds. Regarding the sentence, he points out that “vocalizing during the lethal injection can affect the ability of the pharmacological team to control and respond to any unexpected event.”
Join now EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits
Subscribe here
Ramirez’s attorney can’t believe those fears. “The pastor does not even have to touch the arm where the injection is going to be given, he can touch his limb, on the same foot, where it is difficult for him to interfere with anything. Nor do I see that with his prayers he is going to interrupt anything, “he says. The pastor, Dana Moore, argued that he touches his parishioners when they are going to die and prays out loud to them, so denying him that activity is preventing him from exercising his faith. “Having your priest with you at the moment of death, but not letting him touch you or pray, is like going to buy a car and have it delivered to you in parts; it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work ”, he adds.
These are the issues that will be put on the table this Tuesday in the oral argument before the Supreme Court. Executions are not frequently stopped by the high court. Last January, the highest judicial authority gave the green light to the execution of Lisa Montgomery, despite having been declared mentally ill and having obtained the postponement in lower courts. Montgomery, the first woman to be executed in seven decades, had been convicted in 2008 of strangling a young pregnant woman and extracting her baby, who survived. That winter, in an unprecedented succession of federal executions, also died Cory Johnson, whose lawyers alleged that he has an IQ of 69, below the minimum threshold that the Supreme Court considers necessary to apply the sentence, and Alfred Bourgeois, who tortured and murdered his daughter in 2002. His lawyers unsuccessfully alleged that he suffered from severe dementia that prevented him from understanding the motive for his execution.
Up to 23 states have abolished capital punishment. Virginia became the first southern state to eradicate it this winter. New Hampshire, in the north, did so in 2019, followed by Colorado the following year. But capital punishment still has the general support of Americans. The latest survey on the matter by Pew Research, a leading opinion poll firm, was published last June and reflected that up to 60% of the population supports it.
John H. Ramirez does not discuss the crimes. That July 19, 2004, he stabbed a man 29 times. He took out a dollar and 25 cents. Fled. Justice caught him. But this is not a criminal case, not even one that technically looks at the death penalty, but one that tries to decide whether or not Ramirez’s religious freedom is respected by prohibiting Moore from saying an audible prayer or touching him. Seventeen years after the crime, Ramirez only asks to go to the other world near the person who has accompanied him in recent times and whom he has only met through a Plexiglas panel.
Follow all the international information at Facebook and Twitter, o en our weekly newsletter.
[ad_2]