Posted on 03/28/2005 12:36:05 PM PST by Sola Veritas
Condemned man gets life in prison for killing waitress Updated: 2:47 p.m. ET March 28, 2005 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.
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Henry VI, Part 2 - Act IV, scene 2.
Thanks. I thought it was one of the Henrys.
No, they were serious. Do you think OJ's legal team wanted anyone on that jury with an IQ higher than room temperature? Do you think John Edwards made a fortune by leaving intelligent, rational people on his juries?
You know that both sides get a say in who sits on the jury, right?
Any high school graduate can write a law that is easy to understand, only a lawyer can so confuse the language as to need another lawyer to interpret it.
-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-
Any authority higher than a judge is strictly forbidden.
Why should there be a law against leaving things laying around? The guy should have watched where he was going. Having the law does not make society safer, but having a means of suing to get money back in a civil court does. Why should there be criminal law when civil law works better? We don't need law schools and lawyers to have common sense applied in a civil case with a jury of peers and a reasonably intelligent judge.
I know that my ideas are to be considered whacky, but the system of law that we have is worse than whacky, it is corrupt and easily corruptible.
Fine. Go ahead and draft a law governing the sale of publicly-traded securities, if it is so easy.
Just Incredible.. I can't believe how low our justice system has sunk.
It's amazing that was an issue at all.
The defendant should have argued that the case should have been thrown out because the Bible clearly states, "Thow shalt not murder." If murder is forbidden by a religion, then clealy the government cannot make a law prohibiting it, why, that's respecting an establishment of religion.
I would think you would want to ask someone that has knowledge of securities, how about asking people in the securities business to write them themselves? Why doesn't stealing cover this? If someone swindles someone out of money, it is stealing, they serve time in jail. No passing the buck, no excuses. If they honestly tried to invest monies and the money was lost, no crime.
Where the hell was this kind of mercy for Terri damnit ?
Like a securities lawyer?
the Terri Schiavo case has everything to do with our out of control and arrogant judicial system, yet people still want to play by the "rules" and let it continue....
"You can only interpret the law if you don't know what it is" is a peculiar idea.
Why should there be a law against leaving things laying around?
How about buried land mines? Or razor blades in a daycare? Or a handful of nails on the road?
The guy should have watched where he was going.
You have come up with an exception to the general rule that "if you hurt somebody, you pay them back". Excellent. That's common law, and it's what judges do.
We don't need law schools and lawyers to have common sense applied in a civil case with a jury of peers and a reasonably intelligent judge.
Because sometimes people disagree on what common sense dictates. In that case, society defers to "what did we do last time?", and that's where law comes from.
In addition, some disputes are too complicated to have common sense applied. Homespun wisdom doesn't help much if the dispute is, say, between two steel companies over provisions in a asset sale and liability assumption agreement.
What happens when the broker says it was an honest lost investment, and the buyer says they were robbed? Wouldn't it be helpful to have a set of rules so that you could tell which was which?
maybe the jurors were idiots, but was their action so despicable, so subversive that an important judgment had to be overturned?....no, I don't think so......
Yes. Forbidden by our laws, our Constitution, our traditions, and our common sense.
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