See that woman in the photo to the right?

That’s me, Audra Ragland, wearing one of my many head coverings. As a Christian, I’ve come to believe that Scripture requires me to cover my head in public to show my submission to, and reverence for, God. I wear my head covering everywhere.

Last year, however, when I tried to visit my brother in the United States Penitentiary Atlanta, a prison officer demanded I remove my headscarf before entering the visitation area. According to the officer, the headscarf would have been allowed if I were Muslim or Jewish but, he claimed, the prison did not recognize “Christian head covering.”

That was wrong, and yesterday the ACLU of Georgia and the ACLU sent a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons demanding that they end this discriminatory practice.

Needless to say, I was astonished when the officer told me that my religious practice was not recognized. While not as common in the United States, many Christian women around the world cover their heads for religious reasons. I find my inspiration in 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul speaks of the importance of a woman covering her head. I offered to get my Bible and show the officer the basis for my belief, but he was adamant: I could only wear my headscarf into the visiting area if I were Jewish or Muslim.

I felt devastated and torn. I had traveled nearly 150 miles to visit my brother, but I was worried that God would take the removal of my head covering as a sign of disobedience. Knowing that it would be months before I would see my brother again, and knowing my decision to uncover or not would affect not only my visit but other family members with me as well, I ultimately felt like I had no choice but to remove my headscarf.

Walking through the visiting area with my head uncovered, past men I did not know, I felt humiliated and ashamed as I worried that I was dishonoring God. I decided at that point that I could not let this injustice and discrimination stand. Although I didn’t want to report the incident immediately, out of fear that my brother would be retaliated against, I resolved that I would make an effort to raise awareness of the Christian practice of head covering. So, after my brother’s recent release, I contacted the ACLU of Georgia to help me reach out to the prison. I knew that the ACLU has helped protect the religious-exercise rights of women of many faiths, including Christians, and was relieved to learn they would send a letter on my behalf.

As the letter explains, government officials shouldn’t serve as the arbiters of religious doctrine by determining which beliefs are “recognized” or which interpretation of Scripture is correct. And, under the First Amendment, the government should never favor or disfavor one faith over others. Forcing me to choose between my faith and visiting my family in prison was heartless — it was also illegal.

I hope that prison officials will recognize their mistake and stop applying their religious accommodation policies in a discriminatory manner. Women of all faiths should be allowed to cover their heads in accordance with their religious beliefs if they so choose, and no woman who visits a federal prison should be humiliated like I was.

The famous appellate judge Richard Posner once wrote, “A civilized society locks up [criminals] until age makes them harmless, but it does not keep them in prison until they die.” The state of Ohio apparently hasn’t heard of Judge Posner, as they went one step further and tried to execute an elderly Alva Campbell and failed.

Ohio’s lethal injection team spent more than 30 minutes poking Alva Campbell’s decrepit body in search of any decent vein into which they could inject their lethal cocktail to no avail. They finally relented — but only temporarily.

Hours later, Gov. John Kasich announced not a commutation — or a plan to investigate what went wrong — but that Campbell’s execution would be rescheduled for 2019.

It’s a travesty of justice that Ohio’s bungled attempt at executing Alva Campbell was both predictable and avoidable. Campbell’s attorneys had in fact informed the governor and courts that their client’s abysmal health made him a uniquely poor candidate for lethal injection.

Campbell has severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, uses a walker, relies on an external colostomy bag, requires four breathing treatments a day, and may have lung cancer. In a medical examination of Campbell before the execution attempt, doctors failed to “find veins suitable for inserting an IV on either of Campbell’s arms.” Ohio’s only answer to the concerns of Campbell’s lawyers was to give Campbell a “wedged shape pillow” to keep him slightly upright through the execution.

It was predictable and avoidable not only because of information furnished to the state by the defense, but because Ohio had already committed a similar bungle in 2009 when it failed to find a suitable vein to execute Rommell Broom after sticking him with needles for over two hours.

The ability to find a suitable vein is basic to lethal injection. When it cannot be done — because of lack of training and qualifications of the lethal-injection team or the health of the prisoner — the process becomes impossible and the risk of a failure or botch undeniable.

Ohio has earned its execution infamy over time.

The state’s lethal-injection team’s inability to find a suitable vein led to the botched execution of Joseph Clark in 2006, who raised his head from the gurney during the execution to say, “It don’t work. It don’t work.” Ohio persisted, working for another 30 minutes to find another vein before resuming the execution. Media witnesses heard “moaning, crying, and guttural noises” before the deed was finally done 90 minutes after it had begun.

The botched two-hour execution of Christopher Newton in 2007 also stemmed from the execution team’s inability to access a suitable vein. The state’s botched execution of Dennis McGuire in 2014 has been attributed to the use of midazolam — great if you need a sedative for a medical procedure but unsuitable for executions.

The takeaway should be clear. Ohio cannot be trusted to use the death penalty, as time and time again the state fails and causes needless pain and unconstitutional torture. But Ohio is forging ahead.

The state’s schedule of more than two dozen lethal-injections through 2022 gives Ohio the dubious distinction of maintaining the longest list of upcoming executions in the nation. A second attempt to take Campbell’s life is now set for 2019, while Rommell Broom’s new date is in 2020. Last year, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled that Ohio could attempt to execute Broom, yet again, over a powerful dissent pointing out that the U.S. Supreme Court more than a century ago made clear that executions involving “torture or lingering death” would violate the Eighth Amendment.

With its record of three botched executions and two bungled attempts, it’s time for Ohio to stop its unjust assembly line of death. It should reconsider whether it needs to execute prisoners so old and infirm that they can be safely imprisoned until they pass naturally. It should reconsider whether it is even possible to carry out executions without an unacceptable risk of torture or lingering death.

If the state of Ohio actually reckons with this question, they will find the answer to it is no. It is not possible to carry out executions without risking torture or unlawful killing. To paraphrase Joseph Clark’s last words, it just doesn’t work.

In a rejection of President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions' tough-on-crime approach, a new ACLU poll finds that a large majority of Americans believe the criminal justice system is unjust and needs to be significantly reformed.

Nine out of 10 Americans from across the political spectrum told our pollster that our criminal justice system needs fixing. This is an astounding number, but the results are even more impressive when you drill down into them. They show that criminal justice reform is a political issue the American people care about.

Currently, the United States is the world’s leader in incarceration, with 2.3 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails. Our polling shows that Americans are uncomfortable with the land of the free putting so many of its people behind bars, particularly when two out of three respondents do not believe that the criminal justice system treats Black people fairly. Seventy-one percent of respondents said that the United States should reduce its prison population.

This support remained strong across people with very different political beliefs. Eighty-seven percent of Democrats, 67 percent of independents, and 57 percent of Republicans all agreed that we should reduce our prison population. But one of the most encouraging signs that Americans have had enough of mass incarceration is that 52 percent of Trump voters said it was important to reduce the size of the prison population.

Most people polled also believed that mass incarceration wasn’t just a serious problem but counterproductive. Seventy-one percent of respondents agreed that “sending someone to prison for a long sentence increases the chances that he or she will commit another crime when they get out because prison doesn’t do a good job of rehabilitating problems like drug addiction and mental illness.” This includes 68 percent of Republicans and 65 percent of Trump voters. Bleeding-heart liberals they are not.

Americans also don’t want their prisons full of people with mental health disabilities. Eighty-four percent of respondents said that people with mental health disabilities belong in mental health programs instead of prison.

Two in three Americans would be more likely to vote for candidates who supported reducing the prison population and using the savings to reinvest in drug treatment and mental health programs, including 65 percent of Trump voters. And 72 percent said that they would be more likely to vote for an elected official who supports eliminating mandatory minimum laws. This is in direct contrast to the agenda pushed forward by President Trump and Attorney General Session, who have supported more mandatory minimums.

The majority of Americans recognize racial bias in the criminal justice system. Fifty-five percent of Americans agree that racism in policing, prosecution, and sentencing are responsible for racial disparities in our nation’s prisons and jails.

The poll also asked Americans about their views on how the criminal justice system should respond to offenses involving violence. Understanding what Americans think about violent crime is critical since to end mass incarceration we must transform the way our criminal justice system treats all people, including people convicted of offenses involving violence.

Sixty-one percent of Americans believe that people who have committed crimes involving violence can turn their lives around. Sixty-one percent of Americans also believe that people who suffer from drug addiction and commit serious crimes don’t belong in prison but should be in rehabilitation programs where they can receive treatment. And nearly nine out of 10 respondents believe that when people with mental health disabilities commit crimes that involve violence they should be sent to mental health programs where they can receive treatment from professionals.

The data is clear.

When it comes to criminal justice, Americans want reform and rehabilitation, not a return to the disastrous tough-on-crime policies of the 1990s that President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are trying to resurrect. Both are out of touch with what voters want, including in their own party.