File It Under: Bible/Death Penalty Revisited.

It seems that the Colorado case where a death penalty verdict was overturned because jurors quoted the bible in deliberations isn't over after all. Haralan, who was given the death sentence, had the punishment phase of his ruling changed from death to life in prison after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that jurors might have been unduly influenced after studying such verses as "eye for eye, tooth for tooth." It seems that now the prosecution of the case has filed to have a new hearing on that, in saying that Bible was not substituted as law in this case but provided "part of the moral underpinning" for assessing Robert Harlan's character and crime." This should be interesting. To review my past position: I feel that the original death penalty ruling should have never been overturned because ruling on the hypothetical grounds of what "might have" influenced the jurors was not based on anything other than conjecture. Hypotheticals don't have facts behind them , just variables . In time you can adjust any hypothetical to make it change values. I also think that this ruling could only come about if the scripture in question was from the Bible since it has become avant guard to bash Christians in American society. It seems that every other religion is untouchable in the PC world but you can crack on the Christians all you want. Has anyone sued to have eagles remove from American symbols since the Eagle is a religious symbol of Native Americans? Has anyone tried to remove the All Seeing Eye from the back of the dollars or the laurels from the talons of that eagle? Less of a major point here and more of an observation; definately up for debate. To allow for those who last time thought I was saying I believe that ruling along the lines of the bible, and contrary to the law, was ok; I'm not advocating a religious state. However, the reality of the situation is that in having a jury system, you inadvertently accept that the belief systems of the people in the jury will effect the outcome of the case. So if the "vengeance of the Bible quoting Christian" is a bad thing for your case, then It's the lawyers job to root that out in the vior dire at the beginning of the case. Now, this counter filing on it's own will be a intersecting proposal because it is based on the question of can the court change this verdict based on the moral standard that they judged this guys character and actions on? If they rule that the Bible verses somehow brainwashed people into making moral judgments that they otherwise wouldn't have made (which is hypothetical again), then you have to ask should Christians, or people of faiths, be allowed to sit on a jury at all. Out of personal experience, and as a person who worked for a while for a federal court, I can't see how you can remove people from their biases. That's just how it is. If you have a black defendant, the prosecution tries to lands as many white jurors as he can and the defense tries to land as many black jurors as he can. If it's a rape trial the prosecution will always try to get as many middle age men as possible because they have a "I have to protect my daughter" mentality. Don't believe me? Watch "Runaway jury." It's fiction, but the selection process isn't. Overall, I still hope this guy gets the death penalty. I don't think the ruling was changed under direct proof of jury interference. I still think that the deliberation of the jury needs to stand and not be oveturned unless they have proof of juror misconduct.