Yesterday a Muslim imam filed suit in an Alabama federal district court challenging prison rules that preclude him from being present in the execution chamber with inmates sentenced to death. The complaint (full text) in Maisonet v. Dunn, (SD AL, filed 2/4/2021), alleges that a change in execution policy in 2019 that now excludes all religious advisors from the execution chamber was adopted
for the purpose of excluding non-Christian religious advisors and prohibiting condemned men of non-Christian faiths from requesting their religious advisors to accompany them in the execution chamber.
The suit contends that the execution policy violates the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses as well as the Alabama Constitution's Religious Freedom Amendment.
Prior to 2019, prison rules required that the prison chaplain-- consistently a mainline Protestant clergyman-- be present in the execution chamber. That practice was challenged and litigated up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2019 allowed the Alabama execution of a Muslim inmate to proceed without reaching the merits of the challenge to that practice. (See prior posting.) Subsequently in 2019 the Supreme Court ruled against disparate treatment of non-Christian inmates facing execution in a Texas case. (See prior posting.) Courthouse News Service reports on the lawsuit.
