Chattanooga Times Free Press

Pastor, man set to die, faith at core of discrimina­tion suit

- BY MELISSA BROWN

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Two days before Willie Smith was scheduled to die, Pastor Robert Wiley looked to the Gospel of Matthew.

“You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Wiley drew Smith, on a prison telephone at Holman Correction­al Facility, to the story of Peter, who faltered amid strong winds when asked to follow Jesus onto the Sea of Galilee.

“We talk about Peter, and how he had to walk by faith. When Christ bid him to come out and meet him on the water, how much faith did it take to take that step?” Smith said. “Even though Peter got distracted, Christ said, ‘Why did you doubt?’”

The pastor, the condemned and their faith are at the center of a religious discrimina­tion claim that triggered a late injunction from a federal appeals court on Wednesday, apparently halting Smith’s Feb. 11 execution unless Alabama allows Wiley into the execution chamber.

The case, filed in December 2020, is the latest in a series of religious discrimina­tion claims against Alabama and its Department of Correction­s for the role of spiritual advisors during executions.

The discrimina­tion allegation­s spilled into federal courts in 2019, when condemned prisoner Domineque Ray, a Muslim, requested his imam replace the Holman chaplain, a Protestant Christian, in the execution chamber at the time of his death.

Alabama refused and eventually removed the prison chaplain from the execution protocol altogether, but the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Ray, finding it “substantia­lly likely” Alabama violated his constituti­onal rights to the same religious freedoms afforded Christian death penalty prisoners. But the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly reversed the ruling, and Ray was ultimately executed.

Alabama is expected to again appeal the 11th Circuit’s latest ruling in Smith’s case.

In court filings, Alabama has argued allowing a spiritual adviser who is not an ADOC employed chaplain is a security risk. But in its Wednesday ruling, the 11th Circuit stated prison officials have not explored reasonable solutions to the security concerns, such as requiring non-staff spiritual advisors to undergo background checks.

“Without an injunction, ADOC will likely execute Smith without Pastor Wiley in the room with him as he passes,” the appellate court wrote in its ruling. “There is no do-over in this scenario. For these reasons, we hold that Smith has shown he will suffer irreparabl­e injury if ADOC maintains its current policy.”

Smith was sentenced to death in 1992 for the kidnapping and murder of Sharma Ruth Johnson, who he shot to death in a Jefferson County cemetery after robbing her.

Smith and a 17-year-old female accomplice abducted Johnson after approachin­g her at an ATM machine. Smith locked Johnson in the trunk of her car, where she called out her pin code to allow the two to withdraw $80 from her account, according to court record. The accomplice, who served a 25-year sentence for murder, later testified Smith drove to a cemetery and shot Johnson after he worried she would go to police. He later set fire to the car in an effort to destroy fingerprin­t evidence; a wiretapped police informant eventually led to his arrest.

Smith turned down a plea deal for life and was sentenced by a 10-2 jury to death. Alabama is one of only two states to allow non-unanimous jury recommenda­tions of death.

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office called Johnson’s murder “as brutal as they come” when it petitioned for an execution date last year.

Alabama has decried a flurry of petitions in recent days from Smith as an untimely effort to delay his execution, calling the execution an “essential function” amid claims it could pose a COVID-19 risk to staff and witnesses.

“Over twenty-nine years ago, Smith gunned down a woman whose only crime was stopping to use the ATM,” Alabama Assistant Attorney General Lauren Simpson said in a court filing opposing one stay. “His conviction is valid, and a competent state court with jurisdicti­on over his case properly set his execution according to Alabama law. On Feb. 11, 2021, the state should be permitted to carry out his sentence.”

Wiley on Tuesday called the murder a “horrible, heinous crime,” but the pastor believes Smith is deserving of spiritual “comfort” in his final moments.

“The old Willie Smith died a long time ago,” Wiley said. “The man he is now, he’s not the same. It doesn’t excuse what he did. He’s never made any excuses to me. He’s remorseful of it. Knowing Christ now, he realizes the weight of the life he took, the weight of his actions. … If Christ is willing to forgive our past, who am I to try to hold on to somebody’s else’s past when they have accepted Christ genuinely and are doing everything in their power to live brand new. I’m nobody’s judge.”

In a separate claim, the 11th Circuit again sided with Smith Wednesday evening staying the execution to allow the court to consider evidence that prison officials are in violation of the Americans with Disabiliti­es Act.

Smith is petitionin­g the court to allow him a late opt-in to death by nitrogen hypoxia, a novel execution method approved by the state in 2018. Proponents argued the method is more humane than lethal injection, but it is also a hypothetic­al process: The state has yet to establish a nitrogen hypoxia protocol or seek execution dates for prisoners who elected the method.

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Willie B. Smith

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