In Ramirez v. Collier, an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a death-row inmate who requested the presence of his longtime pastor, with audible prayer and the laying on of hands.

“The Supreme Court has rightly ruled that the state did not meet the appropriately high bar the law sets to deny the condemned the accompaniment that their religion prescribes,” two bishops who chair USCCB committees said in a statement. The prelates also called for the prisoner’s life to be spared.