The U.S. Supreme Court granted a reprieve to Ruben Gutierrez, a Texas inmate scheduled to die for fatally stabbing an 85-year-old woman more than two decades ago. The action continued a more than four-month delay of executions in the nation’s busiest death penalty state during the coronavirus pandemic, the Associated Press reports. The order was issued about an hour before Gutierrez could have been executed. His attorneys argued that his religious rights were being violated because the prison system won’t allow a chaplain to accompany him in the death chamber. Texas last year banned clergy from the death chamber after a Supreme Court ruling halted the execution of Patrick Murphy, who requested a Buddhist adviser be allowed in the chamber.
In response, Texas changed its policy, allowing prison security staff in. “The Texas Department of Criminal Justice changed its policy for its own convenience, but spiritual comfort at the time of death is not a convenience; it’s a protected legal right,” said Gutierrez attorney Shawn Nolan. The Supreme Court said it granted the stay pending a ruling court on Gutierrez’s petition. The high court said that if it were to rule in favor of Gutierrez, it would ask a lower court to determine whether serious security problems would result if prisoner could choose spiritual advisers to be preset during executions. Gutierrez would have been the first inmate in Texas to receive a lethal injection since Feb. 6 and the second U.S. inmate to be put to death since states began to reopen. Missouri resumed executions on May 19.