Whether it be at the hands (or knee) of a coward police officer, or jurisdiction, the system continues to unjustly kill Black and brown people. Ruben Gutierrez is a Texas death row inmate who is scheduled for execution on Tuesday and wrote a letter to the U.S. Supreme Court making his last dying wish.
Guiterrez wants permission to allow a Christian chaplain in the execution chamber. The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops filed an amicus brief to support the petition that reads, “TDCJ is not merely making Gutierrez’s religious practice more difficult. It is placing a direct, irrevocable prohibition on his sincere religious exercise, and at the most critical time for such exercise—when the soul is departing this world for the next.”
But Kim Kardashian highlighted the fact that authorities refused to test DNA to prove his innocence. “With his execution scheduled tomorrow, TX #deathrow prisoner #RubenGutierrez continues his years-long fight to get the evidence in his case tested for #DNA so he can prove he did not commit the crime,” she tweeted with a link to the petition.
“Through hundreds of previous executions, the state of Texas has recognized that people being executed have the right to be in the presence of religious advisors when they face the end of their lives,” said Shawn Nolan, one of Mr. Gutierrez’s attorneys.
“Mr. Gutierrez has that same right. Last year, in the face of a religious discrimination lawsuit, Texas state officials decided to strip prisoners of this sacred access to a religious advisor when this spiritual human connection is needed most – at the end of one’s life. In a case in which the state has repeatedly refused to test available DNA evidence, to carry out an execution in this manner is simply atrocious,” said Mr. Nolan.
Kim Kardashian has used her platform to join forces with lawyers who are freeing innocent men and women that were sentenced to long-term or life sentences.
