Robert Barnes, The Washington Post Published 2:45 pm PST, Monday, February 11, 2019 The Supreme Court’s late-night, two-paragraph order that sent a Muslim inmate in Alabama to his execution last week has become the court’s most controversial act of the term, drawing intense criticism from the political right and the left. The court’s five conservatives agreed with Alabama officials that Domineque Ray could be put to death without an imam present in the execution chamber, even though a Christian chaplain who works for the prison system is in place for other executions. The court’s short order did not deal with the religious issue, saying only that Ray made his request too late. His lawyers, and the court’s liberal members, disputed that. The blowback was immediate. “I can’t recall the last time that I was as shocked by a Supreme Court decision,” said Deepak Gupta, a Washington lawyer who argues before the justices. “This decision is indefensible on the merits, and the court doesn’t even bother to try.” Amir Ali, Supreme Court and appellate counsel at the MacArthur Justice Center and a lecturer at Harvard Law School, said the court’s order was in contrast with recent decisions that have protected religious rights. “Consider the opposite circumstance – a Christian person who is told that, during the final moments of his life, he can have only the services of an Imam,” Ali wrote in an email. “It is hard to imagine the court reaching the same result as it did here. And that’s… [Read full story]
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