Prosecutor moves to stop execution of inmate whose religious freedom case reached U.S. Supreme Court – By Abby Livingston (Texas Tribune) / April 16, 2022
The Nueces County district attorney, Mark A. Gonzalez, has moved to withdraw the death warrant for John Henry Ramirez, convicted of a 2004 robbery-murder.
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Declaring the death penalty “unethical,” a local prosecutor has moved to stop the scheduled execution of John Henry Ramirez, who was convicted of killing and robbing a convenience store clerk in Corpus Christi in 2004.
Ramirez, 37, received a last-minute execution reprieve last September, when the U.S. Supreme Court halted his execution with hours to spare. The point of legal contention then was religious freedom. In an 8-to-1 ruling last month, the court directed Texas to allow Ramirez’s Baptist pastor to lay hands on him and pray with him in the death chamber, as the inmate had requested.
The new issue is the prosecutor’s views on the death penalty — not Ramirez’s guilt or his desire for a pastor to attend to his execution.
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