“Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” (Psalm 119:18 NIV)

    In case you are beginning to think things are starting to look up a little in this world, the following news article ought to fix that for you. Be advised, however, that the following piece of news may make you so angry that you may go temporarily blind. Once you’re finished with the news, though, don’t stop reading. You need to see what follows.

Death Sentence Overturned Because Jury Used Bible, Sunday, May 25, 2003

DENVER (Reuters) — A judge overturned a convicted murderer’s death sentence because jurors consulted Biblical passages such as an ‘eye for an eye’ during death-penalty deliberations.

Robert Harlan was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of Rhonda Maloney, a waitress who was driving home from work when Harlan forced her car off the road. Harlan also shot and paralyzed good Samaritan Jaquie Creazzo who tried to come to the woman’s aid.

While noting that Harlan’s crimes ‘were among the most grievous, heinous and reprehensible’ he had seen in 18 years on the bench, Adams County District Judge John J. Vigil said Friday that court officials failed to properly sequester the jury.

Jury members stayed in a hotel during deliberations and court officials made sure newspapers were not delivered to their rooms, but the jurors did find bibles in the rooms.

“The jury supervision performed in this case was extremely negligent and appallingly lax,” Vigil wrote in his ruling. “Jury resort to biblical code has no place in a constitutional death penalty proceeding.”

Vigil has not yet set a date for Harlan’s re-sentencing.

“We respectfully disagree and will appeal,” Adams County assistant district attorney Steve Bernard said. He also said the record was not clear about whether a bible was brought into the jury room.

In a five-day hearing last month, Harlan’s attorneys argued that several jurors consulted biblical scripture during jury deliberations, particularly two Old Testament passages from Leviticus that read, “fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so shall it be done to him.” And, “whoever kills an animal shall restore it, but whoever kills a man shall be put to death.”

Prosecutors had argued that the sequestration order applied to news media coverage and that jurors should be allowed to draw upon their personal moral code including the Bible while rendering a verdict.

    What is it about that story that upsets you the most? Isn’t it the fact that justice for a condemned killer seems to have been derailed because some of his peers who rendered their verdict admit to reading a book called “The Bible”? You may catch yourself thinking, “How could a judge be so blind?”

    But let me ask you this — what motivated those jurors to consult the Bibles they found in their hotel rooms (may God bless the Gideons!). Most likely it was simply because they knew a man’s life was at stake, the life of another had been snuffed out and the life of yet another had been forever altered. They knew that they had been called upon to give their collective judgment for the sake of society as a whole and justice in particular so they wanted to avail themselves of every bit of wisdom available to them. It should go without saying that seeing matters of life and death right before your eyes and having to give a personal decision is no small responsibility and should not be taken lightly. No one wants to be “blind” when placed in such a situation.

What is it about that story that upsets you the most?

    At the same time, before you shake your head in disgust and write this story off as something lamentable, but distant from your world and your life, might I ask you some personal questions?

• When do you read your Bible? Is it only on rare occasion? You have read in it this month, right?
• What causes you to read it? Do you read only when driven to do so by tough decisions, stressful times or out of desperation?
• Just how much do you find yourself truly dependant on the wisdom found within it? Is it more like a life jacket or seat belt to you than it is a guiding light in a blindingly dark world? Have you asked yourself “Why?”
• Does it bother you anymore if you find at the end of the day you haven’t even picked up your Bible to read in it one time? Or has your mind become so independent and your heart so calloused that daily Bible reading is a habit you haven’t practiced in years?
• Can you not see that each day you are making choices great and small that affect not only your life but the lives of all around you, friends and strangers alike, neighbors and society as a whole? And dare you judge to live a single day with the weight of such a great responsibility without even consulting the mind of God revealed to you in Scripture?