[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALABAMA

[Rick Halperin]

February 7



ALABAMA----stay of execution lifted

Supreme Court: Execution of Muslim inmate can proceed


The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday rejected claims from a Muslim inmate who 
said his religious rights were being violated, clearing the way for the lethal 
injection to go forward Thursday night.

In a 5-4 decision, justices vacated a stay issued by a lower court that had 
been blocking the execution of Dominique Ray, 42.

Ray 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 
present.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent that the dissenting justice considered 
the decision to let the execution go forward "profoundly wrong."

Attorneys for the state said Ray had ample opportunity to visit with his imam 
before his scheduled execution, that only prison employees are allowed in the 
chamber for security reasons, and that the imam can visit him before he's led 
to the execution chamber and witness the execution from an adjoining room.

Prison system spokesman Bob Horton said Ray was visited by his imam both 
Wednesday and Thursday and that Ray again renewed a request to have the adviser 
present — the request that has been denied.

Other states generally allow spiritual advisers to accompany condemned inmates 
up to the execution chamber but not into it, said Robert Dunham, executive 
director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which studies capital 
punishment in the United States.

Durham said did not know of any other state where the execution protocol calls 
for a Christian chaplain to be present in the execution chamber.

Ray was sentenced to death for the slaying of 15-year-old Tiffany Harville. The 
girl disappeared from her Selma home in July 1995, and her decomposing body was 
found in a cotton field a month later.

Ray was convicted in 1999 after another man, Marcus Owden, confessed to his 
role in the crime and implicated Ray. Owden told police that they had picked 
the girl up for a night out on the town and then raped her. Owden said that Ray 
cut the girl's throat. Owden pleaded guilty to murder, testified against Ray 
and is serving a life sentence without parole.

A jury recommended the death penalty for Ray by an 11-1 vote.

Ray's attorneys had also asked in legal filings to stay the execution on other 
grounds. Lawyers say it was not disclosed to the defense team that records from 
a state psychiatric facility suggested Owden suffered from schizophrenia and 
delusions.

The Supreme Court also rejected that claim Thursday.

(source: Associated Press)