During Lance Shockley’s final moments in Missouri’s execution chamber in October 2025, he wanted his daughter, an ordained minister, by his side as his spiritual adviser.
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A few years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had expanded religious rights for the condemned, saying spiritual advisers could accompany them into the execution chamber and could touch them while praying aloud.
But the Missouri Department of Corrections refused Shockley his chosen spiritual adviser, and he died alone.
It was the second time Missouri officials had denied someone their spiritual adviser in their dying moments. Yet, the state permitted eight other religious leaders to sit and pray within the death chamber during executions, an inconsistency that advocates said lacked compassion in the wake of the Supreme Court decision.
The presence of spiritual advisers at executions has been a question in several states. In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has favored religious freedoms inside and beyond prison walls. In its 2022 ruling in Ramirez v. Collier, the court said a condemned man in Texas could have a spiritual adviser who was allowed to lay hands on him and pray out loud while he was put to death.
The court’s 8-1 decision was rooted in the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which provides religious protections for incarcerated individuals. The justices urged states to adopt policies streamlining the process for allowing spiritual advisers into execution chambers.
The Missouri Department of Corrections ignored the court’s advice and has not updated its execution protocols, which were last adopted in 2013.
A lack of clear policies enables the corrections department to deny advisers arbitrarily, said Megan Crane, co-director of the MacArthur Justice Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization.
“We’re talking about constitutional rights in someone’s dying moments,” she said.
The Missouri Department of Corrections has allowed some people to have spiritual advisers. In 2022, the Rev. Darryl Gray placed his hand on Kevin Johnson’s shoulder and prayed while he was being executed. Gray, a St. Louis minister, was the first spiritual adviser in the state permitted to sit with someone being put to death.
Gray later said Johnson’s last words were, “They didn’t take my dignity.” As the drug flowed, he felt Johnson grow cold. He prayed before corrections officers led him out of the chamber.
Thirteen states have carried out executions since the Ramirez v. Collier decision, according to data compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that tracks capital punishment in the U.S. But the way each state has handled spiritual advisers has varied. Some allowed an adviser even before the court’s decision. Others have updated their policies to spell out what spiritual advisers are allowed to do. Some, like Missouri, are vague. Theirs only says the person facing death can have up to two clergy members as witnesses.
Questions have also surfaced as states adopt execution methods like nitrogen gas and firing squads. And what’s permitted on paper isn’t always what unfolds in the chamber.
Missouri uses lethal injection to carry out executions. Leonard “Raheem” Taylor, who was Muslim, wanted an imam by his side at his 2023 execution. The prison denied his request because he had previously signed a form saying he didn’t want witnesses. Taylor’s lawyers argued he had been told the form was for family members, and he did not want any relatives to witness his death. When the lawyers brought the issue up to the prison, they were informed it was too late. Court documents show officials gave conflicting deadlines for requesting a spiritual adviser.
According to a letter from the warden, the imam had been cleared to visit Taylor on the morning of his execution, but he couldn’t be in the chamber “due to institutional security concerns related to changing the protocol at this late hour.”
Taylor died alone.
“I don’t think it’s very compassionate,” Kevin Schriener, one of Taylor’s attorneys, recently said. “I think arrangements could have been made.”
Shockley’s two daughters had previously been ordained and one of them is a full-time missionary. He wanted one of them to perform communion and anoint him with oil before the execution. He wanted the other to be in the chamber with him.
The Department of Corrections has a policy allowing prisoners to request a spiritual adviser who’s also a family member, but said it does not apply to those under a death warrant. The prison denied Shockley’s request, saying that family members pose a danger because they could try to dislodge the IV line that delivers the fatal drug.
Lawyers for Shockley, who was sentenced to death in 2009, noted that his daughters had been visiting him in prison since they were young girls without any issues.
Department of Corrections spokesperson Karen Pojmann said a state statute prohibits relatives from serving as spiritual advisers to those facing execution.
However, Joseph Welling, an attorney and professor at Saint Louis University’s law school, said the courts have never interpreted the statute to say that.
Heidi Moore, executive director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, said the state's failure to update its policy is a dereliction of duty.
The Rev. Jeff Hood, who has been a spiritual adviser to men on death rows in five states, said other states have a more defined process. But even when states allow an adviser, some have specific rules on physical contact. For example, in Oklahoma, the adviser is allowed to touch the person’s foot, according to Department of Corrections spokeswoman Kay Thompson.
In 2024, Alabama introduced nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method. Louisiana followed suit the next year. Both states enacted policies allowing spiritual advisers in the chamber, and they must sign a form acknowledging the risks should the gas leak. Their policies also specify when a person facing execution has to request an adviser.
In the weeks leading up to Jessie Hoffman Jr.’s execution in March in Louisiana, the Rev. Reimoku Gregory Smith, a novice Zen priest, became his spiritual adviser. They formed a relationship based on truth, authenticity and courage, Smith said.
In the chamber, Smith knew he was not allowed to touch Hoffman. Instead, he sat a couple of feet away in a square that had been taped off. He was allowed to chant for five minutes — not enough time to finish the prayer — after the gas had been turned on.
Smith said that spiritual advisers are important because they serve as compassionate witnesses. For him, that meant seeing Hoffman for the man he had become and, in his final moments, facing impermanence with him without fear. Smith officiated Hoffman’s funeral, where he highlighted Hoffman’s spiritual transformation.
In 2025, South Carolina began using firing squads. It also uses lethal injection. The person facing death can pick two witnesses — an attorney, a spiritual adviser or a family member. Most have selected their lawyer as the first witness, with the second choice split between a relative and a spiritual adviser, according to Jeffrey Collins, an Associated Press reporter who has attended the past seven executions since the state restarted executing people in 2024. Spiritual advisers have not been in the chamber regardless of the method, he said.
Even when there is a policy, what happens in practice may not be what an adviser expects.
The Rev. Bri-anne Swan wrestled with becoming a spiritual adviser to her longtime friend Ramiro Gonzalez in Texas. She worried that by agreeing to be his adviser, she would become complicit in his execution, an act that she considered abhorrent. Ultimately, she wanted to be there so that he would feel love in his final moment.
At Gonzalez’s execution in 2024, Swan thought she had permission from the prison to hold his right hand, but when they were in the chamber, his hand was tethered to the gurney with a bandage, and she wasn’t able to grasp it. Not being able to hold his hand was one of the most heartbreaking parts of the process, Swan said.
Robert Dunham, an attorney and director of the Death Penalty Policy Project, said spiritual advisers in the context of executions are a matter of constitutional rights — and human decency.
“It’s the decent thing to do, to comply with these religious requests,” Dunham said. “It’s something that states shouldn’t be opposing.”
