“Journalists really need to follow up on this crucial religious-liberty case,” our own tmatt wrote in February after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the execution of a Muslim inmate. The big issue in that case was Alabama inmate Domineque Ray’s execution without a spiritual leader from his own faith at his side.
But last week, the high court granted a rare stay of execution for a Texas inmate as he was waiting in the death chamber. Justices ruled that the refusal of Texas to allow a Buddhist spiritual adviser to be present violated Patrick Murphy’s freedom of religion.
Wait, what gives?
Why let one inmate die and another live in such similar cases?
Such questions sound like perfect pegs for inquisitive journalists.
Speaking of which …
Robert Barnes, the Washington Post’s veteran Supreme Court reporter, points to the court’s newest justice:
It’s difficult to say with certainty why the Supreme Court on Thursday night stopped the execution of a Buddhist inmate in Texas because he was not allowed a spiritual adviser by his side, when last month it approved the execution of a Muslim inmate in Alabama under almost the exact circumstances.
But the obvious place to start is new Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who seemed to have a change of heart.
Kavanaugh on Thursday was the only justice to spell out his reasoning: Texas could not execute Patrick Murphy without his Buddhist adviser in the room because it allows Christian and Muslim inmates to have religious leaders by their sides.
“In my view, the Constitution prohibits such denominational discrimination,” Kavanaugh wrote.
But Kavanaugh was on the other side last month when Justice Elena Kagan and three other justices declared “profoundly wrong” Alabama’s decision to turn down Muslim Domineque Ray’s request for an imam to be at his execution, making available only a Christian chaplain.
“That treatment goes against the Establishment Clause’s core principle of denominational neutrality,” Kagan wrote then.
Keep reading, and the Post notes differences in how the inmates’ attorneys made their arguments: