A death-row inmate who murdered a man over $1.25 has demanded that his pastor lays his hands on him during his lethal injection execution.
John Henry Ramirez, 37, a former Marine, was sentenced to death in 2009 after he murdered Pablo Castro in a brutal frenzied attack in 2004, Daily Mail reports.
On Tuesday, August 31, he filed a lawsuit to have his pastor, Dana Moore, lay her hands on him in the death chamber, as he believes it will grant him a spiritual blessing in his last moments.
Listen to Ramirez discuss his crime below:The lawsuit argues that denying Ramirez the ability to have his pastor present as he is executed is in violation of his first amendment right.
The 37-year-old has had two stays of executions: the first was in 2017 so that he could get a new attorney and the second was in September 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ramirez is citing a 2018 US Supreme Court order that prevented Patrick Murphy's execution unless his spiritual advisor could be present.
Murphy was one of the "Texas 7", who killed a Dallas police officer, and he has yet to receive a new execution date.
Ramirez killed Pablo Castro, a 45-year-old convenience store clerk, by stabbing him 29 times - an act which gained him and his two codefendants just $1.25, according to court documents.
He revealed in a 2018 interview that he, Angela Rodriguez, and Christina Chavez were drinking and consuming various drugs that night.
Pictured below is the entrance to a death row block in Texas.
Recounting the act, Ramirez said that he had initially tried to break up a fight between the shopkeeper and Rodriguez, but after the stabbing, he realized that he had gone too far.
He explained that his military training took over during the attack, per Daily Mail.
"They teach you to kill a person in the fastest way possible. They teach you kill shot. That's what we call it, which is a lot of places I ended up hitting Pablo," Ramirez said.
"I hit him in the heart. I hit him in the neck. I hit him in the groin. I hit him in the lung."
After the killing, he went on the run to Texas for four years before being apprehended and convicted in 2009.
In an interview with the BBC, a juror said it took less than an hour to sentence Ramirez to death.
"If you're sentenced to death in Texas, you're pretty set that you're going to die," Ramirez told the news outlet.
