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A juror or the entire jury may discuss any biblical verse or doctrine they choose. But no jury anywhere or under any circumstance may bring in material not approved by the court. And that approved material may be only those things, tangible, papers, maps, drawings, charts, books , etc that were admitted into evidence during the open course of the trial. Likewise, no juror may visit the scene of an incident, civil or criminal, that is under that body's consideration.

No one is knocking the Bible in this opinion, it's a book everyone should read and follow. But it has absolutely no role to play in a jury's consideration of fault in a civil case or guilt or sentence in a criminal case. If it were it were otherwise, a prosecutor or defense counsel in a criminal case or a plaintiff or defendant in a civil case could use the courtroom lecturn as a preaching pulpit to inspire jurors to do this or that because the Bible, or the Koran, or the Book of Mormon, or whatever may be the book of some other religion to based their decision on.

The court is not only correct, it was compelled to issue the opinion and rule the way it did----all of the FR howls of protest to the contrary notwithstanding. Juries just cannot be allowed to act on their own like this...

"Juries just cannot be allowed to act on their own like this..."

They do worse things...the O.J. Simpson trial.

Do you actually think that when I delibrating a case, or anyone of strong religious conviction, that I am not actively reliely on scripture to guide me in a decision process? I may not have the Bible in my hand, but it is still their in my heart(mind). You can't take that away from me, or anyone else for that matter.

The idea of keeping things out of the Jury room is in reference to specific things pertaining to the case such as newspaper accounts, etc. so as you have said only the testimony and evidence presented in court can be considered. A Bible only speaks in general terms. Plus, the ONLY bearing it had on the deliberations would be if some were hesitant, after determining guilt, to impose a death penalty for murder based on religious grounds - if that hesistancy was based upon their background. Then it would be germane. When elected officials take the oath of office on a Bible, you tell me it doesn't belong in a court of law or a jury room?

I think that is absurd. It is indeed institutionalized anit-bible nonsense. The very basis of western law is the Bible.

No one is knocking the Bible in this opinion, it's a book everyone should read and follow. But it has absolutely no role to play in a jury's consideration of fault in a civil case or guilt or sentence in a criminal case

Well put.

I think I could have predicted and written all the responses on this thread, and in some cases maybe even proper attribution, just on the basis of the headline.

More and more, I just end up shaking my head after a visit to FreeRepublic. It used to be fun, when Clinton was in office, and you had to look for a Michael Rivero thread for wackiness. Now I sometimes think FR has gone the way of the rest of the country and everyone just gets more polarized, less able to give thoughtful consideration to once-shared values. Instead of persons, we view each other as targets in some sort of verbal video arcade shooter.