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September 28, 2021

Texas completes state's third execution of 2021

As reported in this local article, "Texas carried out its third execution of the year Tuesday night, lethally injecting Rick Rhoades for killing two men in their Houston-area home 30 years ago."  Here is more:

I speculated in this post, wrongly, that death row inmates might all be able to secure a stay of execution after SCOTUS granted cert in Ramirez to determine religious liberty rights in the Texas execution chamber.  A couple of weeks ago, as noted here, another Texas inmate did get an execution stay based on religion claim SCOTUS is considering in Ramirez.  But it seems Rhoades was either uninterested or unable to make a Ramirez claim, and his execution went forward as scheduled.

September 28, 2021 at 10:40 PM | Permalink

Comments

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has an interesting brief to the Ramirez case

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-5592/193769/20210927123215176_Main%20Brief.pdf

These briefs often can be repetitive but as seen with the Mississippi abortion briefs, some do have something special to say.

The SCOTUSBLOG page is here:


https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/ramirez-v-collier/


I readily admit that I don't think SCOTUS will be too convinced by the FFRF brief's wider arguments, but only marginally less than a more mainstream liberal brief in many cases.

On the wider question, I get the idea the state is likely to lose, and as Elena Kagan said as SG in the Citizens United case, the matter will be by how much. The U.S. brief, e.g., has examples of past federal executions involving touching and/or spoken prayer.

As to the person who just was executed, I don't think it would have worked if the person suddenly said that he wanted to be touched and have a vocal prayer at his execution. Probably would be deemed too late, but well, that's just a hypothesis on my part.

Posted by: Joe | Oct 2, 2021 3:36:32 PM

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