Arizona prisoner seeks to have spiritual adviser present at execution
An Arizona loss of life row prisoner says his religious rights will be violated if he is not granted accessibility to his spiritual adviser all through his possible execution.
The Arizona Supreme Court docket lately granted the state’s ask for to established a briefing schedule for Frank Atwood, who was sentenced to loss of life in Pima County in 1987 for the murder of an 8-year-previous girl, Vicki Lynne Hoskinson.
Atwood is now getting held in the Browning Unit at the Eyman Point out Prison Advanced in Florence.
In early May well, the Court docket will have a conference where by they could determine irrespective of whether to grant a warrant and established a day for Atwood’s execution.
Really should that take place, Atwood, who procedures the Greek Orthodox faith, wishes his priest to be in a position to lay hands on him and pray in excess of him for the duration of the execution.
The recent Office of Corrections protocols make it possible for for a spiritual advisor to communicate with the prisoner in the dying chamber from a different area by means of microphone, but do not permit them to be in the similar home as the prisoner.
Lawyers for Atwood submitted a complaint this week in the United States District Court docket of Arizona, Tucson Division, declaring the DOC protocols would violate his constitutional legal rights. They are asking the federal courtroom to keep any pending execution warrant from the condition supreme court until eventually the DOC modifications their execution protocols to let the religious advisor in the place and to place his arms on Atwood throughout prayer.
In the criticism, Atwood’s lawyers spotlight his historical past of devout faith.
“Although he is incarcerated on Arizona’s demise row, he observes a strict agenda of prayer and review at the way of his priest, Father Paisios, Abbot of the St. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery in Florence, who baptized him into the faith in July 2000,” the lawyers wrote.
The grievance states Paisios has visited and ministered to Atwood often for several several years “despite, at distinct points, imposition by the Arizona Section of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry of illegal impediments.”
In accordance to the criticism, the present DOC execution protocols violate Atwood’s legal rights less than the Establishment and Totally free Physical exercise Clauses of the Initial Amendment and the Spiritual Land Use and Institutionalized Folks Act.
“Mr. Atwood seeks the modification of ADCRR’s Execution Protocol to comport with his spiritual training underneath the legislation,” said his lawyer, Joseph Perkovich. “Should he facial area execution, he seeks to do so in a way consistent with elementary tenets of his devout Greek Orthodox religion. He seeks the means for his longtime spiritual advisor to administer last legal rights to him as the State would attempt to put him to death.”
The Supreme Court docket recently ruled in favor of a dying row prisoner in Texas who challenged the state jail system’s ban on the practice of a spiritual adviser laying palms on the prisoner through an execution. Creating the vast majority opinion, Main Justice John Roberts mentioned the prisoner “is likely to go through irreparable damage in the absence of injunctive aid mainly because he will be unable to interact in secured spiritual workout in the final times of his existence.”
The Arizona Department of Corrections declined to comment pending litigation.
Have a information idea on Arizona prisons? Attain the reporter at [email protected] or at 812-243-5582. Observe him on Twitter @JimmyJenkins.
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