And god said...

A recent death penalty decision by a jury was tossed out by a judge (via CNN ), because one of the jurors relied on the bible for guidance (and shared the biblical passages with other jurors). The judge who threw out the case said:

The death penalty, however, must be imposed in a constitutional manner ... Jury resort to biblical code has no place in a constitutional death penalty proceeding

I think that makes sense, though it raises a question. Can people who are strong believers in the bible be excluded from jury cases, because they'll let biblical law overrule constitutional law? I 'm not suggesting this as a course of action, rather as an interesting thought to ponder. Let's come back to this in a second.

The judge criticized court officials for failing to make sure jurors were not exposed to outside influences. "The jury supervision performed in this case was extremely negligent and appallingly lax," he wrote.

Is the bible an 'outside' influence? If she didn't actually physically have a bible, but brought biblical knowledge with her is that still considered an outside influence? What about non-biblical texts? If I used Plato or Aristotle or even Marx as guiding principle in helping me decide, is that considered an outside influence.

Let's be clear for a moment. It's not about his guilt - it's about his punishment. And, obviously, in this case there was no automatic death penalty decision, or the jury wouldn't have to have made any decisions. That being the case, in that there must not have been a clear 'law' for them to use, what can be used to decide if death is warranted as a penalty?

If 'outside' influences can cause a jury decision to be tossed, I think we'd need to toss out all jury decisions. No one comes into a jury without outside influences, whether it is societal, biblical, or philosophical. I think it's reasonable to assume that her biblical quoting would only influence people who already viewed the bible as an authority. If I was on the jury, biblical quotes would have no effect on me, as I don't view it as an authority.

To toss out a jury's decision because of that seems to me a dangerous direction for jury trials.