Supreme Court HALTS execution of Texas killer to consider his request to have his pastor lay his hands on him as he's put to death
The U.S. Supreme Court has halted the execution of a Texas inmate as they consider his request to have his pastor lay his hands on him as he's put to death by lethal injection.
John Henry Ramirez, 37, was scheduled to be executed Wednesday night, before the Court handed down their decision at the eleventh hour.
Ramirez has been on death row for more than a decade after being convicted of murdering 45 year-old store clerk Pablo Castro in 2004.
He stabbed Castro 29 times for $1.25 during a drug fueled robbery in Corpus Christi. He fled to Mexico but was arrested more than three years later.
Ramirez, who is a former Marine and devout Protestant, sued prison officials last month, asking them to let his spiritual advisor lay hands on him and say a prayer while he was being executed.
Prison officials claimed that would pose a security risk and the vocal prayer could be disruptive. Ramirez countered that their denial violated his First Amendment right to freedom of religion
For Protestants, the laying of hands is a symbolic act in which a religious leader places their hands on a person to confer a spiritual blessing.
Ramirez' s request was turned down by Texas prison officials, and a federal judge in Houston and the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals also denied Ramirez's request to stay his execution over the issue.
However, the Supreme Court late on Wednesday voted to halt the execution so they can fully consider Ramirez's request.
According to a memo published Wednesday night, the Court will now hear the case in 'October or November'.
he Supreme Court late on Wednesday voted to halt the execution so they can fully consider Ramirez's request and determine whether he can have his pastor lay hands on him as he is put to death
Store clerk Pablo Castro (pictured) was 45 when he was murdered by Ramirez in 2004
'He is paying for his crime,' said pastor and Ramirez's spiritual advisor Dana Moore. 'I guess the question that would come up, is that not enough?'
Ramirez has already had two stays of execution - once in 2017 so he could get a new attorney and again last September because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ramirez's is the latest clash between death row inmates and prison officials in Texas and other states over the presence of spiritual advisers in the death chamber.
He was condemned for the 2004 killing of 46-year-old Pablo Castro as he took out the trash from a Corpus Christi convenience store.
Prosecutors say Ramirez stabbed Castro 29 times during a series of robberies in which the inmate and two women sought money following a three-day drug binge.
In a 2018 BBC interview from prison, Ramirez said he, Angela Rodriguez and Christina Chavez were smoking weed, taking cocaine, prescription pills and drinking vodka that night.
He told BBC that Rodriguez was fighting with a man, and he got involved in the altercation to try to separate them.
Crime scene photo of Pablo Castro's brutal murder in 2004
'I had stabbed him in the neck,' Ramirez said. 'There was like real aggressive gurgling sound. That's what kind of snapped me out of it, and I saw how hurt he was and he was bleeding everywhere. I was just like, "Oh man. I went too far."'
Growing up, Ramirez said he had an abusive father who stabbed his mother multiple times when he was younger. He said in the BBC interview that he was surrounded by gang activity, so he joined the Marines.
Ramirez claimed that during his drug-fueled blackout, the military training took over.
'They teach you to kill a person in the fastest way possible. They teach you kill shot. That's what we call it, which is a lot of places I ended up hitting Pablo,' Ramirez said.
'I hit him in the heart. I hit him in the neck. I hit him in the groin. I hit him in the lung.'
Ramirez fled to Mexico but was arrested three-and-a-half years later. He is set to be executed Wednesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
In April, the Texas prison system reversed a two-year ban on allowing spiritual advisors in the death chamber.
The ban came after the US Supreme Court in 2019 halted the execution of another Texas inmate who had argued his religious freedom was being violated because his Buddhist spiritual advisor wasn't allowed to accompany him.
Texas previously allowed state-employed clergy to accompany inmates into the chamber, but its prison staff included only Christian and Muslim clerics. The new policy allows an inmate´s approved spiritual advisor to be in the chamber but the two cannot have any contact and vocal prayers during the execution are not allowed.
Seth Kretzer, Ramirez's lawyer, has argued the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is violating the death row inmate's First Amendment rights to practice his religion. He called the ban on vocal prayer a spiritual 'gag order.'
'It is hostile toward religion, denying religious exercise at the precise moment it is most needed: when someone is transitioning from this life to the next,' Kretzer said in court documents.
Ramirez joined the Marines (left) to escape an abusive father and the gang activity in his Texas neighborhood. During his 2009 trial (right) he was convicted by a jury after less than an hour of deliberations
In a 2018 interview with the BBC, Ramirez credited his military training for the killing: 'They teach you to kill a person in the fastest way possible. They teach you kill shot.'
Dana Moore, Ramirez's spiritual advisor since 2016, said the request is about letting the inmate practice his Christian faith and treating him 'with a certain amount of dignity.'
'John's sentence wasn't death and you can't have any meaningful contact,' said Moore, a pastor at Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi. 'He is paying for his crime. I guess the question that would come up, is that not enough?'
But Mark Skurka, the lead prosecutor at Ramirez's 2008 trial, said while he believes a death row inmate should have a spiritual advisor at the time of execution, there have to be limitations based on security concerns.
'Pablo Castro didn't get to have somebody praying over him as this guy stabbed him 29 times. Pablo Castro didn´t get afforded such niceties and things like to have a clergyman present,' said Skurka, now retired after later serving as Nueces County district attorney.
Castro, who had nine children, had worked at the convenience store for more than a decade when he was killed.
'He was a good guy. He would help people out in the neighborhood. Everybody liked him,' Skurka said.
Rodriguez and Chavez, the two women who took part in the robberies, were convicted on lesser charges remain in prison.
If Ramirez is executed, he would be the third inmate put to death this year in Texas and the sixth in the US.
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