The United States’ Supreme Court halted the execution of an Alabama man late Thursday, right before his execution warrant was due to expire at midnight, AFP reported. The court ruled that Willie Smith, a 52-year-old Alabama man, could not be executed “without his pastor present.”

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“The law guarantees Smith the right to practice his faith free from unnecessary interference, including at the moment the State puts him to death,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote.

Smith was sentenced to death in 1991 killing of a 22-year-old woman in Birmingham, the most populous city in Alabama, after robbing her at gunpoint at an ATM. Smith’s lawyers over the decades have challenged his death sentence, arguing he has a below-average mental capacity.

As his execution date approached, lawyers filed a fresh slew of appeals challenging the fact Smith’s personal chaplain would not be allowed in the death chamber for security reasons and challenging protocol changes prison authorities adopted because of COVID-19.

Smith had asked that his pastor be by his side during his execution, to ease what he called the “transition between the worlds of the living and the dead”.

Alabama’s federal court had on Wednesday ruled in Smith’s issuing a temporary stay of execution. However, state authorities filed another appeal the following day with the US Supreme Court. 

Supreme Court’s conservative justices Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, and John Roberts disagreed with the decision. Two remaining jurists did not disclose how they voted.

If the state would have gone ahead with Smith’s execution, it would have been the first in the country in 2021.

Former president Donald Trump’s administration resumed federal executions last July, carrying out 13 death-penalty sentences in seven months, including three in January.

Federal executions have been paused under President Joe Biden, who opposes the death penalty.

Capital punishment has been abolished in 22 states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have observed a moratorium on its use.

An independent monitor in December last year said that executions of prisoners in the US have reached a 29-year low in 2020.