ATMORE, ALA. -- A Muslim inmate who filed a legal challenge because Alabama wouldn't let his Islamic spiritual adviser be present in the execution chamber was put to death Thursday after the nation's highest court cleared the way.
Domineque Ray, 42, was pronounced dead at 10:12 p.m. of a lethal injection at the state prison in Atmore.
Ray had argued Alabama's execution procedure favors Christian inmates because a Christian chaplain employed by the prison typically remains in the execution chamber during a lethal injection, but the state would not let his imam be there in the room.
Attorneys for the state said only prison employees are allowed in the chamber for security reasons.
Ray's imam, Yusef Maisonet, watched the execution from an adjoining witness room, after visiting with Ray over the past two days. There was no Christian chaplain in the chamber, a concession the state agreed to make.
Strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, Ray was asked by the warden if he had any final words. The inmate said an Islamic statement of his faith in Arabic.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday had stayed the execution over the religious arguments, but the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to proceed in a 5-4 decision Thursday evening. Justices cited the fact that Ray did not raise the challenge until Jan. 28 as a reason for the decision.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent that she considered the decision to let the execution go forward "profoundly wrong."
Other states generally allow spiritual advisers to accompany condemned inmates up to the execution chamber but not into it, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which studies capital punishment in the United States.
Durham said did not know of any other state where the execution protocol calls for a Christian chaplain to be present in the execution chamber.
Alabama Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn said this is the first time the state has had an objection to the chaplain's presence. He said the state will review procedures to determine if something needs to be changed.
Ray was sentenced to death for the 1995 rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl. Tiffany Harville disappeared from her Selma home on July 15, 1995, and her decomposing body was found one month later in a cotton field.
It was Alabama's first execution of the year.
Ray was convicted in 1999 after another man, Marcus Owden, confessed to his role in the crime and implicated Ray. Owden told police that they had picked the girl up for a night out on the town and then raped her. Owden said that Ray cut the girl's throat. Owden pleaded guilty to murder, testified against Ray and is serving a life sentence without parole.
A jury recommended the death penalty for Ray by an 11-1 vote.
Ray's attorneys had also asked in legal filings to stay the execution on other grounds. Lawyers said it was not disclosed to the defense team that records from a state psychiatric facility suggested Owden suffered from schizophrenia and delusions. The Supreme Court also rejected the request.
Spencer Hahn, one of Ray's attorneys, said he was appalled that Ray received unequal treatment at his death because he was a member of a religious minority,
"Domineque was a devout Muslim and a human being. He was a son, a father, a brother. He wanted equal treatment in his last moments," Hahn wrote in a statement.
Ray's legal team said his first name was Domineque. The prison system used a different spelling, citing court records.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a statement saying he was pleased the court let the execution proceed.
"For 20 years, Domineque Ray has successfully eluded execution for the barbaric murder of a 15-year-old Selma girl. ...Tonight, Ray's long-delayed appointment with justice is finally met," Marshall said.
Ray was convicted of the 1995 murder of 15-year-old Tiffany Harville.
Ray becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Alabama and the 64th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983.
Ray becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1, 492nd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977, about 7 months after the US Supreme Court re-legalized the death penalty nationwide in its July 2, 1976 Gregg v Georgia decision.
Source: charlotteobserver.com, Kim Chandler, Associated Press, February, 2019
Justices Allow Execution of Muslim Death Row Inmate Who Sought Imam
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the execution of a Muslim inmate in Alabama whose request that his imam be present had been denied.
The vote was 5 to 4, with the four more liberal members of the court in dissent.
The majority offered little reasoning but said that the inmate, Domineque Ray, had waited too long to object. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenters, said the majority was “profoundly wrong.”
Under Alabama’s policy, she wrote, “a Christian prisoner may have a minister of his own faith accompany him into the execution chamber to say his last rites.”
“But if an inmate practices a different religion — whether Islam, Judaism or any other — he may not die with a minister of his own faith by his side,” Justice Kagan wrote.
“That treatment goes against the Establishment Clause’s core principle of denominational neutrality,” she added, referring to the clause of the First Amendment that bars the government from favoring one religious denomination over another.
A federal appeals court had issued a stay of execution on Wednesday, saying that excluding the imam while routinely allowing a Christian chaplain to be present raised serious questions about religious discrimination.
Mr. Ray was originally scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Thursday for the 1995 rape, robbery and murder of Tiffany Harville, 15, in a cotton field outside Selma. His lawyer, Spencer Hahn, said at 10:20 p.m. that Mr. Ray had been killed.
As his execution date neared, Mr. Ray told prison officials that he sought, as the appeals court put it, “spiritual guidance and comfort from a cleric of his own faith.”
The officials said Mr. Ray’s imam could visit him shortly before the execution and observe it from a viewing room. But they would not allow the imam into the execution chamber.
The chaplain was allowed to be present, the officials went on, because he was an employee of the prison system who was “a member of the execution team” and was “familiar with the technicalities of the execution protocol,” having attended almost every execution in the state since 1997. The chaplain kneels and prays with inmates who seek pastoral care, the officials said. After considering Mr. Ray’s request, prison officials agreed to exclude the chaplain. But they said allowing the imam to be present raised unacceptable safety concerns.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, stayed the execution, saying Mr. Ray had presented “a powerful Establishment Clause claim.”
“We are exceedingly loath to substitute our judgment on prison procedures for the determination of those officials charged with the formidable task of running a prison, let alone administering the death penalty in a controlled and secured manner,” Judge Stanley Marcus wrote. “Nevertheless, in the face of this limited record, it looks substantially likely to us that Alabama has run afoul of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”
The appeals court put Mr. Ray’s appeal on a fast track, with briefing to have been completed in a little more than a month.
On Wednesday, lawyers for Alabama filed an emergency application asking the Supreme Court to vacate the stay of execution in the case, Dunn v. Ray, No. 18A815. The state should be allowed, they wrote, to proceed with the “serious and solemn responsibility” of conducting executions “in an orderly and secure fashion.”
In response, lawyers for Mr. Ray urged the justices to allow the litigation to move forward in the appeals court. “Mr. Ray does not dispute that the state has an interest in enforcing its judgments,” they wrote. “But it does not have an interest in doing so unconstitutionally.”
In her dissent on Thursday, Justice Kagan wrote that the majority had acted with unseemly haste.
“Ray has put forward a powerful claim that his religious rights will be violated at the moment the state puts him to death,” she wrote. “The 11th Circuit wanted to hear that claim in full. Instead, this court short-circuits that ordinary process — and itself rejects the claim with little briefing and no argument — just so the state can meet its preferred execution date.”
Source:
nytimes.com, Adam Liptak, January 7, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
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