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Texas Jew on death row granted stay of execution
(JTA) — A stay of execution was upheld for a Jew on death row in Texas, one day before he was scheduled to receive lethal injection.
Jedidiah Murphy, 48, was sentenced to death for the fatal 2000 shooting of 80-year-old Bertie Lee Cunningham in Dallas County during a carjacking.
On Monday, one day before his execution date, Murphy’s spiritual advisor and chaplain, Rabbi Dovid Goldstein, who guided him as he celebrated being a bar mitzvah in 2016, accompanied Murphy as he lay tefillin for what they both thought might be his last time. But later in the day, a federal appeals court upheld the stay of execution.
The ruling caps a period of a few days when Murphy’s fate hung in limbo. He was initially granted a stay of execution by a federal district court on Oct. 6 on the grounds that DNA evidence suggesting he was capable of “further dangerousness” did not meet the required burden of proof, as his attorneys had argued.
But two days later, the Attorney General’s Office filed a motion in the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate the stay of execution. Had that motion been accepted, Murphy would have been executed on Tuesday.
The appeals court ruled, however, that the stay of execution would remain in effect until a similar court case also involving DNA was resolved. That case was brought by a different Texas prisoner, Ruben Gutierrez.
“We enter no ruling on the motion to vacate the stay at this time,” the three judges wrote in their ruling. “Therefore, the stay of execution will remain in effect. Once the opinion of this court issues in Gutierrez, we will order additional briefing on whether the stay should be vacated.”
Murphy and his supporters believe the DNA evidence will show that Murphy never committed an earlier carjacking that was central to the argument that he deserved the death penalty. He was never charged in that crime, but prosecutors accused him of committing it and said it suggested he was capable of “further dangerousness.”
Murphy’s attorneys, who could not be reached for comment, have been unsuccessful in other recent attempts to spare their client from the death penalty. On Friday, the same day the stay was granted, a federal court denied a request to block Murphy’s execution. In that filing, his attorneys alleged that the drugs he was set to be injected with were damaged when they were exposed to smoke and extreme heat during a recent fire at a state prison.
He was also denied clemency from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Sunday.
In a message Murphy sent to Cantor Michael Zoosman, a former prison chaplain who runs L’Chaim, a Jewish anti-death penalty group, Murphy said the back-and-forth on what will happen to him is difficult to handle, but is even more challenging for his family.
“We’ve seen it many times where we’re in a place like this, the day before, there’s a stay in place and you still have the execution carried out,” Zoosman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Because of the uncertainty, last week, Zoosman sent Murphy a copy of the viddui, a traditional Jewish confessional prayer recited before death.
“I’ve done that many times for people as a hospice and hospital chaplain,” Zoosman explained. “But it also applies here, if in fact he is going to be put to death, then this is the prayer that our tradition offers for someone who’s about to face death.”
Murphy was abused as a child by his birth father and adoptive father and abandoned his birth mother, who was Jewish, according to the Forward. In the year before the murder, Murphy had sought mental health care. He was diagnosed with mental dissociative identity disorder, major depression and alcohol dependency, the Texas Observer reported. While he has confessed to the crime, he was high on cocaine and says he does not remember it.
“Three years ago I cried out to Hashem and submitted to his authority and my mind was completely restored,” Murphy wrote in an email from prison to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “That is a miracle and so do I have faith? Absolutely, because I’ve beaten the odds time and again and I know it is for a reason I don’t fully understand. Being Jewish brought a sense of community and I’ve been blessed with Rabbis that pour into someone that did not deserve it.”
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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’
FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
The post Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.