Michael McConnell, the director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, who collaborated on a brief with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Harvard Law’s Religious Freedom Clinic in support of Ramirez, says the court may have taken up the case because “they want to put an end to this.”

“They don’t want to have one or two of these coming along every year,” he explains. “And so if they announce a single clear precedential opinion, that will solve the problem.”

In their brief filed before the court, McConnell, Harvard and Becket argue that the “presence of clergy at executions—and their ability to pray aloud for and touch the condemned—is an ancient religious practice that our Constitution and laws protect from arbitrary government interference.” They cite examples of the practice being allowed in colonial England, the Revolutionary War and the Antebellum-era, among others.

“It is, I think, inconceivable that America in 2021 would decide to not protect a right that was so firmly protected 300 years ago,” McConnell argues.