Alabama execution canceled after inmate demands pastor’s presence

The Supreme Court blocked an execution in Alabama after the inmate asked for his pastor’s presence in the chamber

Alabama has held that non-prison staff should not be in the room for security reasons

The inmate had a soda and a bag of potato chips before the execution was stayed

An Alabama inmate was granted a pardon for a scheduled lethal injection Thursday after the US Supreme Court said the state must allow his personal pastor to enter the death chamber, The Associated Press reported.

Alabama canceled the lethal injection of Willie B. Smith III after judges upheld a court order issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit saying he could not be executed without his pastor present in the chamber.

Photo: Twitter.

Department of Corrections spokeswoman Samantha Rose said the execution would not proceed given the ruling.

Alabama has maintained that non-prison personnel should not be in the room for security reasons.

«Willie Smith is on death row, and his dying wish is to have his pastor with him when he dies,» Judge Elena Kagan wrote in an opinion concurring with three other justices.

Willie B. Smith III. Photo: Alabama Department of Corrections via AP.

“Alabama has not assumed responsibility for showing that the exclusion of all members of the clergy from the execution chamber is necessary to ensure the security of the prison. So the state cannot now execute Smith without the presence of his pastor, to facilitate what Smith calls the ‘transition between the worlds of the living and the dead,’ ”Kagan wrote.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett joined three liberal justices in letting the ruling stand.

The case was the latest in a series of legal fights over personal spiritual advisers in the executions.

Execution canceled in Alabama

In 2019, the court stopped the execution of a Texas inmate who claimed that his religious freedom would be violated if his Buddhist spiritual adviser could not be in the death chamber with him.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh suggested in a dissent that states that want to avoid litigation on the issue «should find a way to allow spiritual advisers to enter the execution room, as other states and the federal government have done.»

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall did not immediately comment on the decision to cancel the lethal injection.

After the execution was called off, Smith was taken from a holding cell by the execution chamber back to his cell on death row, a prison spokeswoman said.

Smith, 51, was scheduled to receive a lethal injection in a southern Alabama prison for the 1991 murder of Sharma Ruth Johnson, 22, in Birmingham.

Filed Under: Alabama Execution Canceled

Smith had sought to allow his spiritual advisor, Pastor Robert Wiley, to enter the execution chamber, something the state does not allow.

«Mr. Smith stated that he believes that the transition point between life and death is important, and that having his spiritual advisor physically present at that time is an integral part of his faith,» Smith’s attorneys wrote in court documents.

In the past, Alabama used to place a Christian prison chaplain, who was employed by the state, in the execution chamber to pray with an inmate if requested.

The state stopped the practice after a Muslim inmate requested the presence of an imam.

The prison system, which did not have Muslim clerics on staff, said non-prison staff would not be allowed into the chamber.

Prosecutors said Smith abducted Johnson at gunpoint from an ATM, stole $ 80 from her, and then took her to a cemetery where he shot her in the back of the head. The victim she was the sister of a police detective.

Filed Under: Alabama Execution Canceled

«More than twenty-nine years ago, Smith shot and killed a woman whose only crime was to stop using the ATM,» state attorneys wrote in court documents seeking to proceed with the lethal injection.

The judges overturned another suspension issued by the 11th Circuit related to Smith’s intellectual ability.

His attorneys argued that the state failed to provide the man, who has an IQ below 75, required assistance with forms that affect the timing of his execution.

The Alabama attorney general’s office in court papers disputed that Smith is disabled and called it a last-minute delaying move.

Had the execution been advanced, it would have been the first by a state in 2021 and one of the few at the state level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, no state has had an execution since July 8.

Smith did not eat the meals offered Thursday, but did receive a soda and a bag of potato chips, Alabama Department of Corrections spokeswoman Samantha Rose said.

He was visited by his wife, mother, sister and stepfather, as well as by an investigator from his lawyer, reported FOX News.