Texas has decided to bar all prison chaplains from its execution chamber after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state violated an inmate’s rights by denying his request for a Buddhist chaplain to be by his side at the time of his scheduled death. “In response to a recent ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has made a change to its execution protocol to only allow TDCJ security personnel in the execution chamber,” Jeremy Desel, a department spokesman, said in a statement to HuffPost on Wednesday. The high court last week blocked the execution of Patrick Murphy, a member of the so-called Texas Seven group of escapees, ruling that the state could not allow spiritual advisers of some faiths but not others in the execution chamber. Texas previously allowed only prison employees into the chamber, and only Christian and Muslim chaplains were employed by the state. “The government may not discriminate against religion generally or against particular religious denominations.”Under the new policy, which Desel said is effective immediately, no chaplains will be allowed into the execution chamber.

Source: Huffington Post April 03, 2019 23:26 UTC