Earlier this year in February, The Supreme court approved the execution of a Muslim man, Domineque Ray in the absence of a requested appropriate religious adviser. It was determined that allowing entrance to the execution chamber to an outside spiritual adviser, who was not a trained prison employee, would be a security threat to execution protocol. In response to Ray’s request, the Alabama Department of Correction (ADOC) amended their protocol to no longer permit any spiritual adviser whatsoever in the execution chamber. According to Ray’s attorney, days before his scheduled execution date, he learned that his imam would not be given access to the execution chamber and immediately filed emergency-stay paperwork. A unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled in Ray’s favor and stayed the execution, saying Mr. Ray had presented “a powerful Establishment Clause claim.” Following this, ADOC’s attorneys filed an emergency application asking the Supreme Court to vacate the stay of the execution. They insisted that “The state should be allowed to proceed with the serious and solemn responsibility of conducting executions in an orderly and secure fashion.” In response to this application, Ray’s lawyers urged the justices to expedite the litigation of Ray’s appeal. However, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court voted to vacate the stay on account of the fact that Ray’s appeal on religious grounds had come too late.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States clearly states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The very purpose of this free exercise and establishment clause is to avoid preferential or discriminatory treatment of any particular religious denomination. This forms the backbone of American citizens’ right to religious liberty. Decisions like this call to question the government’s commitment to protecting that liberty. The state of Alabama’s laws and policies regulating execution protocol were clearly hostile towards Non-Christian religions. As Justice Kagan said, giving the dissenters opinion, it basically gave prisoners the option of having Christian death rites or none whatsoever. The Supreme Court’s subsequent decision to permit the state to carry out Ray’s execution in this manner was a violation of his right to freedom of religious exercise according to the First Amendment to the Constitution. The Court’s support of the practice of this protocol in itself can be regarded as establishment or preference of one religion over others in gross violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The court’s only justification in approving this gross infraction on his religious freedom was the fact that he had “waited too long” to speak up about it. Even this fact was later rebutted by Justice Kagan as she reminded the court that Ray had only found out that his Imam would not actually be let into the room from a prison guard 5 days before he ended up filing his paperwork. Can the government truly claim to be religiously impartial when it approves and permits such blatantly religiously discriminatory practices?
I think that this case is just another in a long list of instances where the US government has pointedly met the Muslim community with hostility. Just last term the Supreme court approved the Trump administration’s travel ban which targeted immigrants from certain Muslim-majority countries. In Trump v Hawaii 2018, the Court in a 5-4 decision, miraculously held that the Proclamation did not in fact violate the Establishment Clause. I am not sure how this law that sought to pointedly refuse entry to people who just happened to be of a particular religious denomination was seen as anything but an endorsement or establishment of their religious opposition. Time and time again the US Supreme Court seems to be becoming less and less religiously impartial with their rulings to the point where it begs to question whether the separation between church and state truly exists. I think if the US government wants to stay true to its claim to religious plurality and impartiality, decisions like the one made in Ray’s case cannot continue to happen. The court cannot continue to support the religious denigration of its citizens, particularly with regards to something as serious and absolute and death rites.
7 comments:
I agree with George in stating that this is a clear case of discrimination that the First Amendment was created to eliminate. The very point of the amendment is to project minorities against the tyranny of the majority. In this case as George points out, a Muslim, a member of a minority religion was denied a religious request specifically due to the religion he practiced. The obvious favoring of the Christian religion in the case, leads me to conclude this is a clear case of infringement on the establishment clause.
I also am in agreeance with George. America has shown time and time again that it puts preference on the Christian faith, and with all the tensions between America and the Islamic faith, it doesn't surprise me that not only was he denied his rights, but that they were upheld by the court. I also think that although time plays a factor, nowhere in the constitution does it say you have the freedom of religion unless you're five days out from execution.
This case is a strong example of religious bias. There is no government neutrality between religions, as the preference of Christianity was clear, thus this was a violation of Ray’s freedom to exercise his religion. I agree with George that if the US government wants to uphold the validity of the establishment clause, they must stay religiously plural and impartial.
I agree with George that this case is violating Ray’s First Amendment rights. In this case, there is no clear separation of church and state because there is clear favoritism to the Christian faith. The government is clearly denying’s a man’s rights, who is a member of a minority religion, and, therefore, I believe that there is no neutrality in this case and it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
I agree with George as, according to him and Justice Kagan, Christians were still able to receive their last rites. Though I recognize their argument was because of safety protocols, if a Christian priest can be cleared, there should not be a reason why the imam could not, with reasonably low difficulty, also be given clearance.
I respectfully disagree. As you stated in the article, the Alabama Department of Correction (ADOC) amended their protocol to no longer permit any spiritual adviser whatsoever in the execution chamber. This is both facially and practically neutral. Additionally, though I do believe there is evidence that Ray was discriminated against, I see no correlation from this to the decision regarding the "Muslim ban". One of these issues is a Constitutional matter; the latter is a political issue with a much broader context than Muslim discrimination, expanding past the scope of our course into a much more complicated discussion of domestic policy.
This is a clear case of discrimination towards Ray and the Muslimn community. This case in particular stands out to me because it is not a matter of simply being discriminated, someone’s life is being executed. It is difficult for me to analyze this case from the first amendment standpoint because a lot of morality is being ignored. I think that any person should have the right to a spiritual adviser before it is their time to go.
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