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The first death row prisoner to help lead a death row ministry in Texas\u2019s Allan B. Polunsky Unit, a state prison with maximum security units, is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, October 26. On Tuesday, Texas denied Will Speer\u2019s application for clemency, meaning his execution will go forward.<\/p>\n
Every morning, Speer leads prayer and worship\u2014sometimes delivering a sermon through prison radio\u2014on death row. Though the men are in solitary confinement for 22 hours of the day, they can still sing together through the walls, said pastor Dana Moore, who has spent years ministering to those on death row in the Polunsky Unit.<\/p>\n
In 2021 the Texas Department of Criminal Justice started an 18-month faith-based program for 28 death row inmates who passed an application process. The program became known as the \u201cGod Pod,\u201d consisting of classes, worship, and rare fellowship for those normally in solitary confinement.<\/p>\n
Speer graduated from the program this year and became the first \u201cinmate coordinator\u201d for the God Pod program, which meant he could teach classes and mentor others in prison despite being on death row.<\/p>\n
Speer was convicted of murdering Jerry Collins when he was 16 and was sentenced to life in prison as an adult. Then, a decade later in 2001, he was convicted of murdering a fellow prisoner, Gary Dickerson\u2014he says the murder was to get gang protection in prison\u2014and was sentenced to death.<\/p>\n
He argues that mitigating information was not shared with juries. He testifies to a horrific childhood of repeated abuse and violence, and to being sent to a hospital as an adult after a severe beating in prison. His highest level of education was eighth grade. Speer has expressed remorse for his crimes and was baptized behind bars in 2022.<\/p>\n
The only surviving immediate family member of Dickerson, whose murder resulted in Speer receiving a death sentence, said she did not want Speer to be executed. Sammie Gail Martin submitted a letter<\/a> to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles asking that Speer\u2019s sentence be commuted to life in prison.<\/p>\n \u201cI have spent much time reflecting on what justice my brother and family deserve,\u201d she wrote. She said she believed Speer was remorseful and \u201chas something left to offer the world.\u201d If he received a life sentence, \u201chopefully he can continue to help others and make amends for his past crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n J. C. Collins, the son of victim Jerry Collins, told the Baptist Standard<\/em><\/a> that he would attend the execution, but in order to pray for Speer. \u201cI don\u2019t want to see him die,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI know what I robbed from them and their families,\u201d Speer told the Baptist Standard<\/em>. \u201cI understand, because I\u2019ve been there. The stepfather who abused me killed my mother. I know what it feels like. I can\u2019t restore what I took away from them. But maybe I can give back some other way.\u201d<\/p>\n Speer\u2019s attorney Amy Fly stated that if Speer was allowed to spend the rest of his natural life in prison, he would join the Texas field ministry program<\/a>, which involves more seminary training than the God Pod program and makes the incarcerated graduates de facto prison chaplains.<\/p>\n Ministry programs available on death row vary state by state. Official prison chaplains have the most access, ministry leaders say. Evelyn Lemly, the CEO of Kairos Prison Ministry, said their death row ministry programs generally depend on whether the facility allows them in.<\/p>\n But more \u201cpeer\u201d ministry <\/a>is happening at prisons now. When those behind bars are leading ministry, it allows the incarcerated population to have more access to ministry, since chaplains are stretched to cover an entire prison population and outside visitors are limited.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s increasingly common,\u201d said Michael Hallett, a researcher<\/a> who has studied the religious lives of long-term prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola. He has followed prisoner-led ministry programs in Texas and Louisiana.<\/p>\n Critics of prisoner-led ministry say \u201cit\u2019s just a way for Texas to spend less money on prisons by putting inmates in as de facto chaplains,\u201d Hallett told CT, adding that chaplains have more training and certification in things like crisis intervention and grief counseling.<\/p>\n But these \u201cpeer\u201d ministries do \u201cbring great comfort to prisoners,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cMany times, prisoners are better able to relate to one another than to outside volunteers,\u201d he said. \u201cIt eliminates the shame factor and allows for very genuine and open conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n Those behind bars need visits from the outside, too, reminding those in prison that \u201cthey\u2019re not forgotten,\u201d Southern Baptist pastor Dana Moore told CT.<\/p>\n Moore, who leads Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, Texas, has ministered to others on the same death row with Speer. He was part of a US Supreme Court case a few years ago, where prisoner John Henry Ramirez had asked prison officials to allow Moore to lay hands on him<\/a> at his execution. The Supreme Court ruled in Ramirez\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n Moore laid hands on the chest of Ramirez<\/a> when he was executed in October 2022. He\u2019s now ministered on death row for six years and finds the biggest difference from his regular ministry is that, apart from the execution, he can never shake hands with or hug the men he\u2019s talked to for years. They speak through a phone with plexiglass between them. He mostly listens to them and hears how they are doing, and they often talk about God or a sermon.<\/p>\n Ministering to men who are eventually executed \u201cis a toll,\u201d he said, especially with the flurry of last-minute court decisions. Moore also visited with Jedidiah Murphy, who was executed in Texas earlier this month. He says he is pro-life, and therefore against the death penalty and abortion. People in his church might not agree with him, but \u201cthey\u2019re supportive\u201d of his approach, and some volunteer in a Kairos prison ministry program. In his sermon this past Sunday, he told his church that each of them know a condemned prisoner: Jesus.<\/p>\n Hallett said the Texas faith-based programs are valuable, but they need to be \u201cmore ecumenical\u201d so they are not coercive. Becoming a field minister in Texas prisons, for example\u2014a program where long-term prisoners receive training to be de facto prison chaplains\u2014happens through the Heart of Texas Foundation, a Christian organization<\/a>. (Texas Monthly <\/em>reported<\/a> that the God Pod included Buddhists, Muslims, and an Odinist.)<\/p>\n \u201cThe Christians there, they\u2019re vocal but they\u2019re not overbearing with it,\u201d said Moore, the Baptist pastor.<\/p>\n States other than Texas and Louisiana<\/a> have unofficial ministries led by prisoners themselves. In Tennessee, Kevin \u201cKB\u201d Burns became an ordained pastor while on death row and wrote materials on incarceration for the Christian Community Development Association. He does not currently have an execution date, and Tennessee executions are currently paused while the state resolves issues with its lethal injection protocol. Burns has worked as a chaplain\u2019s assistant, according to one pastor who has regularly visited him<\/a>, and goes cell to cell praying with men on death row.<\/p>\n Burns maintains his innocence but was convicted in 1995 of the two felony murders of Damond Dawson, 17, and Tracey Johnson, 23.<\/p>\n Pastor Kevin Riggs of the nondenominational Franklin Community Church has visited Burns for years and said his church elders agreed to ordain him<\/a> after observing how he was already ministering to others on death row. That ordination process took place over two years of training, and now Burns is listed on the church\u2019s staff webpage as its \u201cminister on death row.\u201d<\/p>\n But outside ministers are the ones present for execution. Stacy Rector, a Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor in Tennessee, visited a man on death row, Steve Henley, for ten years. Visitation rules for death row are complicated in Tennessee and require a lot of paperwork and patience, Rector said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor anybody thinking about doing this work, this ministry, there has to be a commitment level to it, because there needs to be consistency for the men and women,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s life for them. But you also have to have boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n