Lack of faith
Let chaplains attend to condemned prisoners.
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in March that Texas could not execute an inmate unless it honored his request to have a Buddhist spiritual adviser in the death chamber with him, the state was given two options: Allow chaplains of all faiths into the death chamber, or don’t allow any.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice chose the latter. No longer are condemned prisoners allowed to have a cleric in the same room as they draw their last breath. No longer can a chaplain stand at an inmate’s foot during his final moments and offer silent prayers, as they have in the past.
Now, chaplains employed by the TDCJ are allowed to “observe the execution only from the witness rooms.”
Witness rooms, where victims’ friends and family, prisoners and the media watch executions through a glass window, are adjacent to the death chamber. That’s like a priest offering last rites from the hallway rather than at the bedside of a dying person.
Close, but little actual comfort. Whether you support the death penalty or think it should be abolished, as this editorial board has called for, there should be no doubt that denying last rites — a basic tenet of faiths across the religious spectrum — is unnecessarily cruel and violates an inmate’s religious liberty.
The presence of a cleric in an inmate’s final moments “is a small but vital form of human compassion in an otherwise dehumanizing process,” said 180 faith leaders from both Christian and non-Christian traditions who signed a July 23 letter urging TDCJ officials to change the policy. Standing behind a glass partition “is no substitute for this direct ministry.”
The TDCJ policy changed in April after the Supreme Court halted the execution of Patrick Murphy, one of the Texas Seven, the notorious prison escapees who committed several robberies and killed a police officer in 2000. About a month before his scheduled execution, Murphy asked TDCJ to allow his Buddhist spiritual adviser in the death chamber.
The state agency denied the request, saying that only chaplains employed by TDCJ were permitted inside the execution room. State-employed chaplains are nondenominational and include Christians and Muslims, according to a TDCJ spokesman.
Not allowing Murphy the same access to a religious adviser as a Christian or Muslim inmate amounted to “denominational discrimination” and violated his religious rights, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2.
“The choice of remedy going forward is up to the State,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a concurring opinion. “What the State may not do, in my view, is allow Christian or Muslim inmates but not Buddhist inmates to have a religious adviser of their religion in the execution room.”
The Supreme Court ruling in the Texas case followed another decision involving Domineque Ray, a Muslim inmate in Alabama who had requested an imam be present in the death chamber. In 5-4 decision, the court overturned a stay, saying Ray waited too long to object. His imam watched from the witness room as he was executed.
In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the majority was “profoundly wrong.”
Under the new TDCJ policy, chaplains and spiritual advisers can still counsel an inmate in a holding area before the execution but must stay in the witness room during the execution.
In other words, the state decided to correct a practice of denominational discrimination by instituting a policy that erodes religious freedom.
It’s an especially puzzling stand in a state where local government meetings often start with an invocation and student believers gather to pray at the school flagpole. More than two-thirds of adults here say that they believe in God and that religion plays a major role in their lives.
“We have to extend compassion and ministry to people in that situation even if we are horrified by what they did in the past,” said Rick McClatchy, field coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Texas, one of the faith leaders who signed the letter to TDCJ. “They still need a hand reached out to them that extends compassion and the possibility of forgiveness.”
As the letter notes, end-of-life rituals of different faiths, which include anointing, singing, praying and chanting, and laying on of hands, stem from “sincerely-held religious beliefs” and “often require the direct assistance of clergy.”
After sending the letter, McClatchy met with TDCJ officials who, he said, are open to reviewing the new policy.
The ruling doesn’t preclude TDCJ from finding a way to allow chaplains into the death chamber. TDCJ can hire and vet additional chaplains of various faiths to make accommodations for inmates who are not Christian or Muslim. Or the agency can revise its policy to safely train and bring in outside chaplains when warranted.
The belief that we all carry the possibility for redemption is central to most faiths. No one — including those on death row, no matter how heinous their crimes, no matter their religious beliefs — should be denied a chance at salvation.