Posted on 03/28/2005 12:33:40 PM PST by SmithL
DENVER - The Colorado Supreme Court threw out the death sentence Monday of a man convicted of raping and killing a cocktail waitress because jurors consulted the Bible during deliberations.
The court said Bible passages, including the verse that commands "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," could lead jurors to vote for death.
The justices ordered Robert Harlan to serve life in prison without parole for the 1994 slaying of Rhonda Maloney.
Harlan's attorneys challenged the sentence after discovering five jurors had looked up Bible verses, copied some of them down and then talked about them behind closed doors.
Prosecutors said jurors should be allowed to refer to the Bible or other religious texts during deliberations.
Now that's pretrial publicity!
If those were the verses these jurors were looking at, then they were trying to see if condemning the man to death was in accordance to what God had to say.
In other words, they had doubts about whether or not it was right to put him to death.
These judges are idiots.
Yeah, unless the Bible was for some reason in evidence, I can't imagine what made them think this was a good idea. Determining whether or not God would approve of the death penalty is something to do before you serve on a DP jury.
Where in the article does it refer to the Bibles being brought in from the outside?
These guys make the 9th. circus seem reasonable.
Friendly correction: Something is seriously wrong with the American court system.
Self-correction: Something is seriously wrong with America.
It got there some how. If a Juror had quoted the passage from memory it would be one thing, but all that should be in the jury room are the juror notes from the trial, and a copy of the Judge's instructions.
Actually, the California SUPREME Court is very reasonable. Of course, it has to review a lot of unreasonable decisions from lower courts.
We have the Sopranos for our Supreme Court here in NJ
So, you assume the jurors brought it in, rather than perhaps thinking the jurors asked for a Bible?
Again, where does the article say the jurors brought a Bible in from the outside?
I do believe Bibles are readily available in court. At least, the last time I was there they had one, because I was sworn in on one....
In some courts, Bibles are still used as a prop for swearing in witnesses. It's hardly available in the jury room as a reference work, however.
Supreme court justices are now using using outside materials in their deliberations
I agree this has been so for at least 2-3 decades and I don't understand how the jury even had a bible.
ThoughtI beleive at one time in court people used to swear on a bible to tell the truth.
I did not assume that they took it in, I just said it got there somehow, and that it should not be there for deliberations.
Just damn. Halan needs to die.
"Where in the article does it refer to the Bibles being brought in from the outside?"
In an earlier article it said some jurors copied down passages from the bible and shared them with other jurors as backup for their positions.
Totally stupid juror misconduct if you ask me.
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