JHFC!!Texas Jurors Consult Bible For Execution

[MustavaMond]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=553385


Tuesday 13th October, 2009

Amnesty reveals Bible was used to decide execution
Big News Network.com Monday 12th October, 2009


Amnesty International has highlighted a case of a man facing execution in Texas.

The human rights group has revealed a Texas man faces execution after jurors at his trial consulted the Bible when deliberating his fate.

Khristian Oliver, 32, is set to be executed on 5th November.

Jurors used Biblical passages supporting the death penalty to help them decide whether he should live or die. Amnesty considers that the jurors' use of the Bible during their sentencing deliberations raises serious questions about their impartiality.

According to people in the jury room at the time, several Bibles with passages highlighted were passed around during deliberation.

One juror read aloud from the Bible to a group of fellow jurors, including the passage "And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death".

A US federal appeals court acknowledged last year that the jurors' use of the Bible amounted to an external influence prohibited under the US Constitution, but nonetheless upheld the death sentence.

Amnesty International is asking for the death sentence to be commuted.

Khristian Oliver was sentenced to death in 1999 for a murder committed during a burglary.

According to accomplice testimony at the trial, 20-year-old Oliver shot the victim before striking him on the head with a rifle butt.

[dirtydog]

It's quite quaint to see third world countries using religion to help them make decisions on killing people, good on them texans.

[Jet Gorgon]

Texan equivalent of shar'ia. Not bad.
Let's see what this poor boy did:

On March 17, 1998, Oliver and three juvenile codefendants were in the process of burglarizing the home of a 64-year old man. Oliver and the codefendants were in the house and Reed was in the vehicle. The victim surprised Oliver and Oliver shot him in the face with a 380-caliber handgun. He was also beaten around the head with the butt of a rifle.

And the boy be WHITE! *gasp*



Khristian Oliver - Texas Death Row Inmate Khristian Oliver

[AntRobertson]

And the boy be WHITE! *gasp*

What's your point?

[Jet Gorgon]

^ 555555555

[AntRobertson]

Oh, so that would be none then.

[dirtydog]

^Don't they normally only put black people on death row in the land of the free?

[AntRobertson]

Well it certainly doesn't help your case any to be black that's for sure.

[slackula]

No big surprise from a state that knowingly executes innocent people:

Former Panel Chair Says Perry's Office Pressured Him On Death Penalty Probe | TPMMuckraker

This is a long read but well worth it for more background:

Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penalty : The New Yorker

[Jet Gorgon]

^Don't they normally only put black people on death row in the land of the free?

Aww, I didn't want to point that out.