A U.S. Muslim man has been executed after the Supreme Court denied a request to halt the sentence over his demand to be accompanied by an imam to the death chamber. Domineque Ray, 42, was put to death in the southern State of Alabama for the 1995 rape and murder of Tiffany Harville, 15.
“Due to the nature of his crime, the decision of a jury to condemn him to death and because our legal system has worked as designed, Mr. Ray’s sentence was carried out,” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said.
The execution occurred on Thursday after the country’s highest court denied a request for a stay of execution.
The Supreme Court’s ruling lifted a last-minute stay which Ray had won on Wednesday from a federal appeals court. Officials in the conservative State appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority under President Donald Trump.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids public authorities from favouring one religion over another, or from preventing the free practice of faith.
Published - February 08, 2019 10:08 pm IST
