US authorities urged to overturn death sentence after jury consulted Bible

[ensho]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/15/texas-bible-jury-death-sentence


Jurors read from scripture as they deliberated on whether Khristian Oliver should be sentenced to death


The Texas jury didn't hesitate to find Khristian Oliver guilty of shooting and bludgeoning an elderly man to death. Oliver had stood over his bleeding victim, repeatedly hitting him in the head with a rifle butt before robbing his house.

But then came the difficult decision over whether to sentence Oliver to death, and that's when the Bibles came into their own.

A clutch of jurors huddled in the corner with one reading aloud from the Book of Numbers: "The murderer shall surely be put to death" and "The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer."

Another juror highlighted passages which she showed to a fellow juror: "And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, the murderer shall surely be put to death."

Ten years later Oliver, now 32, is just three weeks from execution. Two appeals courts have rejected his pleas for the jury's death sentence in 1999 to be overturned on the grounds it was improperly influenced by references to the Bible. Some of the jurors have made no secret of the part their religious beliefs played in reaching their decision but the US supreme court has refused to take up a case that has been condemned as "a travesty".

-snip-

McHaney said there were about four Bibles in the jury room.
-snip-
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absolute insanity. and the cowardly supreme court won't touch the case.

what are bibles doing in a jury room?

what are the religiously insane doing on jury duty?

the state of Texas is a crime scene.

[kestrel91316]

1. I wish I had been on that jury. They wouldn't have had me on their side

on that DP vote.

The minute somebody whips out a bible, it's mistrial or hung jury time.

[vadawg]

2. apart from maybe having bibles on them, what does it matter if they are christian or if they watch

oprah or dr phil. everyone bases their decisions on a myriad of reasons much the same as they vote with their pocketbook or their bible or their communist manifesto....

[ensho]

3. finding the answer to a jury trial by reading/reciting parts of a religious

book sounds like something the taliban would do.

here in the US we have laws seperating church and state.

true Texas could care less and continues on their religiously insane ways but that doesn't make it right.

[vadawg]

5. yup but does seperation mean that someone who is on a jury is not allowed to use their religious

beliefs to help them reach a verdict, if so what else is not allowed, can you not have been allowed ever to have watched perry mason or house or baywatch. Im not happy with the bible inthe jury room, but if the jurors use parts of the bible to determine if they believe someone should get the death penalty for a brutal murder then how can you stop them and would you be able to.

[ensho]

6. they can use their religious beliefs all they want to - but not reading

from a religious book. that's a step over the line.

[vadawg]

7. yup i agree, :)

[thenooch]

4. Simply put......Don't mess with Texas

snip~In a sharply divided ruling, Colorado’s highest court on Monday upheld a lower court’s decision throwing out the sentence of a man who was given the death penalty after jurors consulted the Bible in reaching a verdict. The Bible, the court said, constituted an improper outside influence and a reliance on what the court called a “higher authority.~snip

http://myopiczeal.blogsome.com/2005/03/30/colorado-court-bars-execution-because-jurors-consulted-bible/

Colorado used some common sense back in '05, when faced with the exact same situation.

Best I can say for the case at hand...at least he's not arguing innocence like Willingham. I have little/none hope Perry will commute his sentence, especially with the election coming up...

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. I think they WANTED to execute him, and searched in the bibles for

reasons to do so.

1) A rifle butt is an instrument of wood or some kind of plastic - not iron.

2) Nobody quoted "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".

[arcadian]

11. Yeah they just skipped ahead to the good parts.

I could rob a bank and find a Bible justification in my reasoning.

[damntexdem]

9. Enough to make one swear.

But not on a Bible.

[Cid_B]

10. I don't get it...

A juror is an average person.. a peer...

What if that person knew the verses my memory instead of referring to the book? Would it change your mind? What if it was a different faith?

The presence of the book makes no difference. The juror across the table may have just read something advocating against the death penalty.

[DavidDvorkin]

12. Just as bad

The problem is relying on the Bible for guidance instead of on the law.

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Imagine the hullaballo had another religious text been consulted instead.