The Supreme Court and Religious Death Rites

Earlier this year on March 28th, A Buddhist man, Patrick Murphy, one of the last surviving members of the ‘Texas 7’ prison escapees, won a reprieve from his impending execution. In December 2000, Murphy was in prison serving a fifty year sentence for sexual assault, when he and 6 other men broke out of the Connally Unit of the Texas prison system on December 13th. Later that month on Christmas Eve, the seven men on the run decided to rob a sporting goods store in Irving and Murphy served as the lookout. This robbery resulted in officer Aubrey Hawkins, who responded to the store owner’s call, being shot eleven times and run over with a stolen car by the robbers. The conviction of this crime earned Murphy a penalty of death by lethal injection set to be performed on March 28th 2019.

A month earlier in February, in Dunn v Ray the Supreme Court denied the request of Domineque Ray, an Islamic man in Alabama, to have his Imam present in the death chamber, holding that this request had come too late. When Murphy learned of Ray's decision, he quickly filed a request for permission to have his Buddhist Religious adviser present, thirty days before his scheduled execution date. This initial request was denied and his lawyers submitted a follow-up request for a state-appointed Buddhist adviser instead and received no response. In the days before his execution, his lawyers further took the issue to the courts, claiming the policy violated his constitutional rights. This repeal was initially rejected by both lower state and federal courts who claimed it was filed too late. However, much to even Murphy’s lawyers' surprise, The Supreme Court voted in a decision 7-2  to stay his execution while the issue was considered, unless a Buddhist spiritual adviser was allowed into the death chamber with him.

The First Amendment to the Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Granting Murphy the right to have his religious adviser present completely supported his constitutional right to freedom of religious exercise.  This leads me to question what was the big difference between Murphy’s and Ray’s cases that granted only Murphy this right? In Ray, it was held that because he had filed the request only ten days before his execution date, it was too late. In Murphy’s case, he filed his request just thirty days before his execution and had his hearing on the actual day of his execution. Nevertheless, The Court deemed it unconstitutional to deny him his right to have his Buddhist spiritual adviser present in the death chamber.This leads one to inquire as to whether a difference of 20 days was really the only deciding factor in determining whether or not these men deserved their respective religious death rites.

In my opinion, there is not a significant difference between these two cases to result in such opposing verdicts. While the decision in Murphy acted in accordance with the Freedom of Religious Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, I think it flies very close to constituting a violation of the Establishment Clause in favoring one religion over another. In Ray, there was no consideration for compromise to satisfy his request. They gave him the option of having a Christian spiritual adviser, or none at all.  Nobody suggested the possibility of acquiring a state-sourced qualified Imam to be present in the chamber. In Murphy’s case, it was almost immediately determined that since they had no available Buddhist spiritual adviser on staff, one would have to be acquired or he could simply not be executed.

I think that The Court’s decision in this matter can be seen as either a retroactive acknowledgement of their error in judgement in Ray or an establishment of precedence of Buddhism over Islam. I agree with Justice Kavanaugh in his assertion that  “the state has to treat all denominations equally." Either all, regardless of faith, are given permission to have their respective religious advisers in their death chamber or no religious advisers whatsoever are allowed in the room. This, I believe would constitute true religious neutrality.