Okay. For those of you that think I’m a left-wing nut, here’s one to chew on.

The Colorado Supreme Court overturned a death sentence on Monday and replaced it with a sentence of life without parole. Why is that? Because five of the jurors had consulted the Bible during closed-door deliberations.

The CNN.com article states in part :

Defense attorney Kathleen Lord, arguing before the state Supreme Court last month, said the jurors had gone outside the law. “They went to the Bible to find out God’s position on capital punishment,” she said.

I would agree that any decision by a jury that was gained by threatening, harassing, or putting pressure on other jurors to vote a certain way should be thrown out.

I do not agree that just because someone relies on their faith in determining whether to sentence someone to death or not. that their decision should be thrown out.

Religion plays a part in most everyone’s decisions. At one end of the spectrum are people who are totally guided from moment to moment by their religious beliefs. At the other end of the spectrum are the people who are not at all guided by a belief in a religion for themselves. Most everyone falls between those extremes.

Deciding whether or not to have someone put to death is a difficult and very serious decision to make. In a time like that, one would hope that each juror would delve deep within themselves to determine what they believe should be the punishment for whatever crimes that were committed. I don’t think that any juror should take such a decision lightly.

Since a juror must weigh many facts and actions during their internal deliberations, there often are times when jurors will need to seek religious texts to clarify what their religion says is acceptable to their God. Once they have found this out, they can choose to follow the text or not, based on their personal views. Also, anyone who has read the Bible will know that it doesn’t always have a clear-cut answer for every situation that may come up in court. So, again, a juror would have to rely on their own judgement to determine the course of action and the weight to give to various facts in the case.

In this case, the Colorado Supreme Court was presented with the fact that “five jurors had looked up such Bible verses as “eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” copied them and discussed them while deliberating behind closed doors.” I believe that whether they copied the Bible verse, brought the entire Bible in, or just quoted memorized verses is irrelevant. Regardless of the method of presentation, the verse came from the Bible and was undoubtedly presented as such.

I don’t believe that jurors could be told to leave their religion at the courthouse door and still be able to decide between what is right and what is wrong. Those decisions are based on your personal belief system. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be a need for a jury of your peers.

To sum it all up, then; I believe that jurors should be allowed to consult any text, either religous or secular, while trying to decide the fate of a convicted criminal.