The case of prison convert Will Speer shows the significance of ‘peers’ leading ministry behind bars.
Update (October 26, 2023): A few hours before Will Speer’s scheduled execution on Thursday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed his death pending further review of his case. Speer has presented several legal claims, including that his counsel did not provide mitigating evidence.
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The first death row prisoner to help lead a death row ministry in Texas’s Allan B. Polunsky Unit, a state prison with maximum security units, is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, October 26. On Tuesday, Texas denied Will Speer’s application for clemency.
Every morning, Speer leads prayer and worship—sometimes delivering a sermon through prison radio—on death row. Though the men are in solitary confinement for 22 hours of the day, they can still sing together through the walls, said pastor Dana Moore, who has spent years ministering to those on death row in the Polunsky Unit.
In 2021 the Texas Department of Criminal Justice started an 18-month faith-based program for 28 death row inmates who passed an application process. The program became known as the “God Pod,” consisting of classes, worship, and rare fellowship for those normally in solitary confinement.
Speer graduated from the program this year and became the first “inmate coordinator” for the God Pod program, which meant he could teach classes and mentor others in prison despite being on death row.
Speer was convicted of murdering Jerry Collins when he was 16 and was sentenced to life in prison as an adult. Then, a decade later in 2001, he was convicted of murdering a fellow prisoner, Gary Dickerson—he says the murder was to get gang protection in prison—and was sentenced to death.
He argues that mitigating …
