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At the Supreme Court

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"High Court Turns Down Challenge to Jury's Use of Bible," is Michael Graczyk's AP report, via Law.com.The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a challenge from a Texas death row inmate who claimed his constitutional rights were violated by jurors who consulted a Bible. In the appeal, Khristian Oliver's defense said jurors reviewed a biblical passage stating that a murderer who used an iron object to kill "shall surely be put to death." Jurors were deciding whether to sentence Oliver to death for shooting and bludgeoning his victim with the barrel of a gun. The Court previously has said jurors should base their verdicts only on evidence presented in the courtroom. State and lower federal courts upheld Oliver's death sentence, despite testimony that some jurors in the Nacogdoches County case consulted the biblical passage...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on April 21, 2009 (boomark / email).