On Death Row in Texas, a Last Request: A Prayer and ‘Human Contact’

Scheduled for execution on Sept. 8, John Henry Ramirez is suing to have his Baptist pastor lay hands on him as he dies.

LIVINGSTON, Texas — John Henry Ramirez and Dana Moore both quote the same passage of the Bible when they explain their friendship. “I was sick and you looked after me,” Jesus says in the book of Matthew, describing God ushering righteous people into eternal life. “I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Rev. Moore, the pastor of Second Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, has been visiting Mr. Ramirez in prison for more than four years, driving 300 miles northwest to the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston, where Mr. Ramirez has been on death row for more than a decade. The two men talk about faith and life, speaking through telephone handsets on either side of a thick Plexiglas window in the prison’s visiting room. Mr. Ramirez, 37, often teases Rev. Moore about his “short and sweet” prayers, and they discuss recent sermons at the church, where Mr. Ramirez became a member a few years ago. Rev. Moore had to bend the rules to accept his application in absentia, but there was no question for him that Mr. Ramirez was qualified.