Every morning, Will Speer leads prayer and worship in his state prison. He is the first death row prisoner to help lead a death row ministry in Texas’s Allan B. Polunsky Unit.

Speer was scheduled to be executed Thursday — but less than five hours before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed his death pending further review of his case, Christianity Today (CT) reported.

While on Tuesday, the state denied his application for clemency, Speer presented several legal claims to dispute his execution. He alleges that his counsel did not provide mitigating evidence at previous trials.

Speer, 49, is known for ministering to his inmates, sometimes delivering a sermon through prison radio, or leading worship, pastor Dana Moore told CT. Moore has spent years ministering to those on death row in the Polunsky Unit.

Two years ago, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice began an 18-month faith-based program for 28 death row inmates who passed an application process. The program was known as the “God Pod,” and consisted of classes, worship, and rare fellowship for prisoners who normally are in solitary confinement, CT reported.

Speer graduated from the God Pod program this year, becoming the first “inmate coordinator” and enabling him to teach classes and mentor other inmates, despite being on death row.

When Speer was 16, he fatally shot a friend’s father, Jerry Collins, in Houston and was sentenced to life in prison as an adult. A decade later in 2001, he received another conviction after murdering a fellow prisoner, Gary Dickerson. His attorneys said the murder was to get gang protection in prison—and Speer was sentenced to death.

Speer’s attorneys had asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to stop his execution over allegations that prosecutors at the 2001 trial failed to disclose evidence and presented false testimony, according to AP News. They also alleged the prosecutors failed to share mitigating information about that Speer’s troubled childhood — Speer was physically and sexually abused as a child. The 2001 prosecutors have denied the allegations against them.

Speer’s lawyers say he transformed while in prison, expressed regret for his actions, and was baptized while imprisoned in 2022.

“I am so aware of the things that I’ve done. I’m so aware of the pain and the hurt that I’ve caused. I could just say that I’m sorry,” he said in a video, which was part of an earlier clemency petition to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

AP News reported that Speer’s attorneys had also asked to stop his execution over claims the state’s supply of pentobarbital, the drug used in executions, was exposed to extreme heat during an August fire at a state prison and was made unsafe.

Religious leaders and relatives of victims petition to spare Speer

Family members of Speer’s victims and religious leader petitioned to authorities to spare Speer’s life.

Sammie Martin, who is victim Dickerson’s only living sibling, said she did not want Speer to be executed.

“I have spent much time reflecting on what justice my brother and family deserve,” Martin wrote in a letter she submitted to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. “I feel that (Speer) is not only remorseful for his actions but has been doing good works for others and has something left to offer the world.”

In the letter, she requested that he instead be sentenced to life in prison where he “hopefully he can continue to help others and make amends for his past crimes.”

J.C. Collins, the son of victim Jerry Collins, told the Baptist Standard, “I don’t want to see him die.”

Collins told the publication that he had wanted Speer to be executed for more than 30 years. However, he had a change of heart growing out of a personal health crisis.

“As much as I thought I wanted for him to be executed, it’s hard to sit here and say that’s what I want,” he said.

Collins was in a “self-imposed prison” of anger toward Speer until a cancer diagnosis last year pushed him to his knees in prayer. There, he found the grace to forgive Speer and let go of bitterness. “I had to forgive. It was the only way I could move on—the only way I could grow as a husband and a father,” he said.

A dozen of religious leaders from around the country also asked that Speer be spared. They wrote a letter to the parole board and Gov. Greg Abbott, saying that Speer’s religious work with other prisoners “does not excuse his actions, but it gives us a fuller picture of who Will is as a human, Christian, leader, and teacher.”

“Christianity teaches that we are not defined only by our actions but rather by being made in God’s image and, for Christians, being sons and daughters of God. This means all life is sacred, from our beginning through our natural death. We ask that you honor this Christian culture of life and grant clemency to Will Speer,” the letter continued.

Prior to the execution stay, Speer’s attorney said that if Speer was allowed to spend the rest of his natural life in prison, he would join the Texas field ministry program, according to CT. The program enables its incarcerated graduates to become de facto prison chaplains.

“I pray God will continue to use me. But the fact is that God already has used me,” Speer told the Baptist Standard. “If God doesn’t do another thing for me, he’s already done enough.”

Freelance journalist Liz Lykins writes for WORLD Magazine, Christianity Today, Ministry Watch, and other publications.