WHERE IS THE IMAM?

Court grants Muslim death row inmate stay of execution

By Melissa Brown

Montgomery Advertiser
February 6, 2019

The U.S. Court of Appeals has granted a stay of execution for a Muslim death row inmate in Alabama as he continues his ongoing bid to have an imam present at his execution.

Domineque Ray maintains the absence of his imam in Alabama's death chamber would violate his constitutional rights, as the state has an established practice of including a Christian prison chaplain in previous executions. Wednesday's ruling overturns a Montgomery federal judge's denial of a stay last week.

Ray was slated to be executed at 6 p.m. Thursday.

"The central constitutional problem here is that the state has regularly placed a Christian cleric in the execution room to minister to the needs of inmates, but has refused to provide the same benefit to a devout Muslim and all other non-Christians," the 11th Circuit's ruling states.

Alabama prison officials have argued in court that the prison chaplain is allowed in the execution chamber because he is a Department of Corrections employee trained in execution protocol.

But in a strongly worded opinion, the 11th Circuit judges wrote that it looks "substantially likely" that Alabama has "run afoul" of the religious freedom clause of the First Amendment.

"What we can say with some confidence based on what little we have seen is that Holman prison will place its Christian Chaplain in the execution chamber; that it has done so nearly uniformly for many years; that the Christian Chaplain will offer to minister to the spiritual needs of the inmate who is about to face his Maker, and that the Chaplain may pray with and touch the inmate’s hand as a lethal cocktail of drugs is administered; and that only a Christian chaplain may go into the death chamber and minister to the spiritual needs of the inmate, whether the inmate is a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, or belongs to some other sect or denomination," Wednesday's ruling states. "What is central to Establishment Clause jurisprudence is the fundamental principle that at a minimum neither the states nor the federal government may pass laws or adopt policies that aid one religion or prefer one religion over another. And that, it appears to us, is what the Alabama Department of Corrections has done here."

The Alabama Attorney General's Office said in a statement Tuesday afternoon it would fight the ruling.

"The Attorney General’s Office is disappointed in the appeals court decision and we plan to ask the (U.S.) Supreme Court to lift the stay,” the statement said.

Ray was sentenced to death for the 1995 rape and fatal stabbing of 15-year-old Tiffany Harville of Selma. Months before his death penalty trial, he was sentenced to life for a 1994 slaying of two teen brothers, The Associated Press reports.

He filed emergency stay paperwork last week, after he learned from the Holman prison warden that his imam would not be able to access the execution chamber. Lawyers said he was previously unaware of this fact, which state lawyers disputed in federal court last week.

In court documents, Ray said prison officials told him the Christian prison chaplain was required to be in the death chamber, which Ray did not want. Prison officials later agreed to remove the chaplain for his execution.

ADOC maintains that allowing an outside spiritual adviser, not a trained prison employee, into the execution chamber would be a security threat to the execution process.

Inmates are "given ample time" to confer with spiritual advisers before execution, including in the final moments before an inmate is taken to the execution chamber, state lawyers said.

"The Alabama Department of Corrections follows a protocol that only allows approved correctional officials, that includes the prison's chaplain, to be inside the chamber where executions are lawfully carried out," ADOC spokesperson Bob Horton said in an emailed statement last week. "The inmate's spiritual adviser may visit the inmate beforehand and witness the execution from a designated witness room that has a two-way window."

But Spencer Hahn, Ray's co-counsel, argued last week that Alabama provides Christian inmates access to a spiritual adviser up until the moment of death.

"Why does Mr. Ray not get the same benefit that a Christian would?" Hahn asked the court.

Hahn said training nonemployee spiritual advisers to be present in the execution chamber should not be a barrier to providing inmates their religious rights.

Ray's spiritual adviser, Imam Yusef Maisonet, attended a hearing last week alongside Imam Wali Rahman, who is a previous adviser to Holman's Muslim inmates. Rahman said they worked on a volunteer basis, sometimes driving from Mobile twice a week on their own dime, while the Christian chaplain is an ADOC employee on state payroll.

"We're going to hear cases like this again," Rahman said. "There should be a staffed imam that inmates have access to equally as inmates have access to a Christian chaplain. We respect Christian rights as to how their inmates want to die. The state is not giving all equality."

An ADOC spokesperson on Wednesday referred all questions to the Alabama attorney general's office.

UPDATE

Dominique Ray, Muslim Inmate, Executed After Appeal Over Spiritual Adviser Fails

By Kim Chandler

Associated Press
February 7, 2019

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.

Dominique 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.”

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a statement saying he was pleased the court let the execution proceed.

“For 20 years, Dominique Ray has successfully eluded execution for the barbaric murder of a 15-year-old Selma girl,” said Marshall. “In 1995, Ray brutally deprived young Tiffany Harville of her life, repeatedly stabbing and raping her before leaving her body in a cotton field. A jury gave him a death sentence for this heinous crime. A year before, Ray had also taken the lives of two teenage brothers, Reinhard and Earnest Mabins. Tonight, Ray’s long-delayed appointment with justice is finally met.”