Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Matthew P. Cavedon on Death Chamber Chaplains and the Law
24 Plays5 years ago
Matthew P. Cavedon, a criminal defense attorney who holds graduate degrees in both law and theology, asks whether death row inmates have a right to have a clergyperson or spiritual advisor present at the time of their execution.
Do those who are convicted of the most heinous crimes deserve spiritual consolation at the moment they are put to death?
Browse our book brochure.
Recommended
Transcript
Exploring Religious Liberty in Execution Chambers
00:00:06
Speaker
What does religious liberty mean in a death chamber? You're listening to Interactions, I'm Hailey Stevenson. Today's episode features a reading of Matthew Cavanaugh's essay, Last Rites, Death Chamber Chaplains and the Law.
Do Death Row Inmates Have a Right to Spiritual Guidance?
00:00:20
Speaker
Cavanaugh, a criminal defense attorney who holds graduate degrees in both law and theology, asks whether death row inmates have a right to have a clergy person or spiritual advisor present at the time of their execution.
00:00:32
Speaker
Do those who are convicted of the most heinous crimes deserve spiritual consolation at the moment they are put to death?
Dostoevsky's Experience with Execution and Its Influence
00:00:44
Speaker
On December 22, 1849, 20 Russian dissidents stood on St. Petersburg Square, waiting to be shot dead by their government. They had already been offered last rites. Several were even tied to a post. Suddenly, a messenger announced that the Tsar would spare them. A mock execution, it was decided, was punishment enough.
00:01:06
Speaker
Two of the condemned lost their minds. Another, Fyodor Dostoevsky, would someday become one of the greatest novelists in European history. Decades later, he wrote his magnum opus, The Brothers Karamazov. One of the titled characters, Ivan, was disillusioned with the orthodox Christianity that Dostoevsky himself had embraced.
Religious Critique in Dostoevsky's Writings
00:01:27
Speaker
His reasons included the attitude of many of the faithful towards capital punishment.
00:01:32
Speaker
By the way of illustration, Ivan tells of a Swiss devotional pamphlet recounting the story of a young man named Richard. After a childhood of great deprivation,
00:01:43
Speaker
Richard killed someone. Once imprisoned, he was immediately surrounded by pastors, members of Christian brotherhoods, philanthropic ladies, and the like. They treated him with great affection, civilizing him and converting him to the faith. Eventually Richard came to believe the evil of his crime and wrote to the court himself that he was a monster, but that in the end God had vouchsafed him light and shone grace.
00:02:08
Speaker
The people of his city rejoiced at his newfound belief and welcomed him as their brother. All the best citizens followed him from prison to the scaffold, assuring him, this is the happiest day of your life, for you are going to the Lord. Then, Ivan sardonically notes, they chopped off his head in brotherly fashion because he found grace.
00:02:30
Speaker
Religion does not always play such a cynical role in executions.
Evolution of Religious Attitudes Towards the Death Penalty
00:02:35
Speaker
Together with the shift from the firing squad, scaffold, and guillotine to the modern-day gurney and needles have come changing religious attitudes towards the death penalty. A particularly notable example is the Catholic Church, which long condoned capital punishment, but has moved over the past few papacies to declaring it inadmissible.
00:02:55
Speaker
And of course, many prisoners, both in the time of Dostoevsky and Richard and today, have found great comfort in having religious personnel present when they are put to death. But whether they have the right to this is a hotly contested issue in American constitutional law.
Dominique Ray's Case and Legal Controversy
00:03:10
Speaker
The current controversy began last year with the case of Alabama convict Dominique Ray. Mr. Ray was sentenced to die for the 1995 murder and rape of a teenage girl. A state-employed chaplain would have been allowed to stay with Mr. Ray inside the execution chamber, to give him comfort, hold his hand, and prepare him for death in his final moments.
00:03:31
Speaker
But Mr. Ray was a Muslim, and the state of Alabama did not employ any Islamic chaplains, meaning his imam could only observe the execution from an enjoining witness room. Mr. Ray challenged this policy, but the US Supreme Court denied his appeal, in part because of the timing and nature of his legal arguments.
00:03:51
Speaker
In the end, Mr. Ray died alone because he was Muslim.
Supreme Court and Patrick Murphy's Religious Rights Case
00:03:56
Speaker
Two months later came the case of Patrick Murphy, a Buddhist death row inmate in Texas. Mr. Murphy was convicted for killing a police officer in 2000. As did Alabama and Mr. Ray's case, Texas closed the execution chamber to any minister other than a state-employed chaplain and did not employ any of Mr. Murphy's co-religionists. Mr. Murphy then would not be allowed to have his spiritual advisor present.
00:04:20
Speaker
But this time, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to stay the execution pending Mr. Murphy's appeal. Its main concern was the unequal treatment faced by Mr. Murphy. Texas responded, not by letting Mr. Murphy's advisor into the chamber, but by restricting all chaplains to the observation room. This decision met with criticism from religious liberty advocates, clerics, and commentators.
00:04:44
Speaker
said long-time death row chaplain Earl Smith of California's famous San Quentin State Prison, I can't fathom why. I could imagine there would be good reasons why you wouldn't allow a religious leader or minister of any faith into a death chamber. But I don't know why you wouldn't allow the last wishes of a dying man to be honored. I don't think the state, I don't think society, has anything to lose.
Nationwide Impact of Chapel Access Discrimination
00:05:09
Speaker
Moreover, Mr. Murphy continues to allege discrimination because even under the new policy, the state employee chaplains, that is, the ones who practice other religions than he does, can stay with convicts until the moment the prisoner enters the execution chamber. But other spiritual advisors have to leave the prisoner two hours before execution.
00:05:31
Speaker
This argument has persuaded the courts to. Mr. Murphy's case has already set nationwide precedents as to what the rights convicts have regarding spiritual accompaniment in the execution chamber.
Debating Ministers' Right to Presence in Execution Chambers
00:05:43
Speaker
Based on his first U.S. Supreme Court appeal, it is clear that ministers have to be given the same access to prisoners regardless of their religion.
00:05:51
Speaker
But is nondiscrimination the only right at play? Or do the condemned have the positive right to have a minister inside the chamber, a right that Texas' new policy denies?
Arguments for Spiritual Accompaniment Rights
00:06:01
Speaker
The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, which has a long track record of wins at the U.S. Supreme Court, says that they do.
00:06:08
Speaker
Religious death row convicts and their ministers continue to fervently seek the answer. In mid-July, two ministers went to court to unsuccessfully assert a right to be present during the first federal execution since 2003. But whether other courts will push open the doors remains to be seen.
Psychological Impact of Execution and Advocacy for Humane Treatment
00:06:26
Speaker
Dostoevsky eventually wrote that, a murder by sentence is far more dreadful than a murder committed by a criminal. Because at least with a criminal, the victim undoubtedly hopes and hopes that he may yet escape until the very moment of his death. But, he continued, doubtless there may be men who have been sentenced, who have suffered this mental anguish for a while, and then have been reprieved.
00:06:51
Speaker
Perhaps such men may have been able to relate their feelings afterwards. That is, there were men like him. The next best thing to reprieve is for the condemned to at least have a partial relief for their torments—the presence of a trusted minister. Regardless of the constitutional issues that the courts have to decide when called upon to intervene, the decent thing for the government to do is plain. Afford unfortunate men like Mr. Ray and Mr. Murphy religious consolation in the execution chamber.
Collaboration and Production of the Podcast
00:07:30
Speaker
That was Matthew Cavadon's essay, Last Rites, Death Chamber Chaplains, and the Law. For further reading, click the link to Canopy Forum in the podcast description. The Interactions podcast is produced by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University and in collaboration with CanopyForum.org. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast to learn more about how law and religion interact in today's world.