The U.S. Supreme rules, 8-1, in that inmates are allowed to have spiritual advisers in the death chamber to pray and touch them in a limited way. The majority opinion said that when Texas denied a request from a death row inmate to have his Baptist minister present in the death chamber to pray over him and touch him, it likely violated a federal law called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The law is aimed at protecting the religious rights of people confined to prisons and other institutions.