Maybe all the Schiavo protestors will head out for Denver. The touring Ten Commandments Monument is in Georgia at the moment, but Colorado’s good citizens can order yard signs, t-shirts, car tags, car magnets, decals, bumper stickers, or Chief Justice Roy Moore’s book, So Help Me God, from 10commandments.biz. (You can get an autographed copy from morallaw.org, the site for the Foundation for Moral Law, Inc.) (I’m having too much fun.)
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The ruling involved the conviction of Robert Harlan, who was found guilty in 1995 of raping and murdering a cocktail waitress near Denver. After Mr. Harlan’s conviction, the judge in the case – as Colorado law requires – sent the jury off to deliberate about the death penalty with an instruction to think beyond the narrow confines of the law. Each juror, the judge told the panel, must make an “individual moral assessment,” in deciding whether Mr. Harlan should live.
The jurors voted unanimously for death. The State Supreme Court’s decision changes that sentence to life in prison without parole.
[T]he dissenting judges said the majority had confused the internal codes of right and wrong that juries are expected to possess in such weighty moral matters with the outside influences that are always to be avoided, like newspaper articles or television programs about the case. The jurors consulted Bibles, the minority said, not to look for facts or alternative legal interpretations, but for wisdom. …
Read the full article at The New York Times. Emphases mine.
not religion or its place in society.
Had the jury consulted another outside text – say a text on the wrongs of the death penalty, or a text calling for all criminals to be killed – I suspect that would of been considered as undue outside influence. That the text in question was the Bible is not relevent to the specific legal point being upheld.
The theocratic right is troubled by rule of law, due process, equality of the law, secular justice, judicial independence. That’s because all of these things are strictly traditional liberalist. And theocracy and traditional liberalism don’t mix. Secular justice is not theocratic. It does not appeal to higher, absolute, powers. It instead relies on the best that humans can do – to know and apply relative truths.
I am deeply concerned about how the theocratic right is turing against our judicial system – against rule of law itself. No! This can’t happen.
When I heard Buchanan speak the other night, he returned again and again to “the courts” (all levels, I gathered) and how much the average person hates them. That they see the courts as the source of all that has gone wrong with America – imposing alien, secular values and robbing people of their rights (e.g. their right to pray in schools or at football games.) He called it the “judicial dictatorship.” He gloated what a source of strength this “court-hatred” was for the conservatives and how it will continue to win elections for the Right.
I found it deeply scary.
I want to beat Peggy Noonan to death with Pat Buchanan’s cranium…but sometimes the reverse is true.
the fact that the “sticky” option on sig lines seems to work.
http://www.morallaw.org/
What I find fascinating is that those so-called ‘Christians’ seem to look more to the old Testament, than to the new one. I mean Jesus words are only in the new one. The Old Testament is more or less Jewish history. What was amazing and revolutionary about Jesus was that he did fight all of that. But no, the so-called ‘Christians’ still adhere to the old Testament and not to the words of Christ, which are about love, forgiveness and compassion.
The OT is not “more or less Jewish history” as you claim, and Jesus never said that his goal was to replace the teachings of the Old Testament. In some cases, he reordered things, in others he changed them entirely.
Of course, you’re right on the other count. A lot of Christians are entirely too focused on the OT.
Perhaps what you should point out instead is that, when asked which commandment is the greatest, Jesus said:
(For those who don’t know, “the Law and the Prophets” is a reference to the majority of the books in the OT). The quote makes it pretty clear that Jesus wasn’t trying to replace the OT, but that he also didn’t expect everything to be read the same way it had been up to that point.
Still don’t believe me? Luke 16:17 (English Standard Version):
(And for those, again, who don’t know, the Law is the section of the OT that generally talks about selling your children into slavery and stuff). So it’s not voided (in fact, it’s explicitly affirmed), but it can be superseded by faith in the Christ.
OK, that’s enough for now. Hope you enjoyed it.
Tom, Tom, Tom…it’ll all be okay. Just relax and let His word guide you. There. Now don’t you feel better?
I knew you would.
of it all is delicious.
The rightness (or wrongness, if we want to debate the decision itself) is way too nuanced for many people. This will be spun to death as “the evil, tyrannical courts are trying to tell Christians that they cannot use the bible for moral guidance!!!!”
See my comment above. Please wake me when it’s over.
mirth and outrage meters need calibration…I keep flipping back and forth.
You’re right, Janet .. and it upsets me too.
Check out Paul Krugman’s new column:
Before he saw the polls, Tom DeLay declared that “one thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America.” Now he and his party, shocked by the public’s negative reaction to their meddling, want to move on. But we shouldn’t let them. The Schiavo case is, indeed, a chance to highlight what’s going on in America.
One thing that’s going on is a climate of fear for those who try to enforce laws that religious extremists oppose. …
is forbidding priests from serving jury duty…
Or, you know, I attend Church once a week and read the Bible regularly. If I’m on a jury, I’m certainly going to recall some of the things I’ve learned in those places—I guess I should make sure that, when I’m asked in Voir Dire if there are any reasons that I’m not qualified to serve, I point out these facts.
Seriously, though, this is a slippery slope. If the Bible can have an undue effect when read during jury proceedings, then it can have the same (or a stronger effect) on someone who reads it regularly. Oh, and by the way, if that’s true then we should be afraid of people who read the New York Times editorial page every day. Heck, maybe a crossword puzzle someone did the week before is still having an effect on someone’s thinking.
In my mind, a jury considering sentencing should consult whatever they think will help them, as long as it doesn’t pertain directly on the case (i.e. not an editorial proclaiming the guilt or innocence of the victim). As soon as we start banning anything more explicitly, we open up a whole host of things to banning.
No, the next step is to educate potential jurors (ie the public) to listen to the judge and follow instructions. The jury was instructed not rely on anything but the law at hand. Those jurors did not follow the judge’s instructions; the defendant filed an appeal and won. There is no religious discrimination here. The moral of this story is pay attention to the instructions. End of story.
is a logical impossibility.
Because these people are using their brains and their beliefs to arbitrate the law, they can’t possibly consider JUST the law.
I know several Muslims who have the Koran memorized, and can recall it just as if they have the book sitting in front of them. Should they be forbidden from serving on a jury because of that fact? No, of course not. So why should someone who actually needs the book in front of them be held to any different standard?
And what if the jury had used the Bible to decide not to choose the death penalty. In that case, should the judge vacate their decision and apply the death penalty? No, of course not again.
Let me put it more plainly for you. You can only bring yourself and your lunch into the jury room. In this case one of the jurors brought in a book, the Bible, that was totally unrelated to the case into the jury room and used it to instruct other jurors. You can’t do that because the judge said so and it’s his court. Think of it as cheating on test. You cannot bring extra materials into the jury room just like you can’t bring your law books to the bar exam.
For the record, you are the one that brought up barring religious people from jury duty. No one else has even suggested it.
So why should someone who actually needs the book in front of them be held to any different standard?
Because the judge said you can’t bring extra materials into the jury room. In fact all judges say this to the jury; this is a part of the standard operating procedure. If anyone can cite a list of cases where a jury was instructed that they could bring unrelated material into the jury room, please let us know. If someone has stuff memorized goodey for them; they are free to discuss it in the jury room, which is why a priest or any other religious person would not be barred from jury duty.
And what if the jury had used the Bible to decide not to choose the death penalty. In that case, should the judge vacate their decision and apply the death penalty?
If the judge instructed the jury not to bring nonrelated reference materials into the jury room and the jury did just that, then the prosecution could appeal on those grounds, would probably win, and the judge(s) could apply the death penalty.
that drawing a distinction in instructions between allowing the text itself and a person who has the text memorized is absurd.
I would also contend that the Bible and any other religious book ever written has a very stong bearing on the case at hand.
If I’m ever up for the death penalty, I want my jury to use every single resource they can possibly get their hands on, no matter how tenuously connected to the issues in question.
but it seems to me that the Holy Bible (including both OT and NT) has many differing opinions about the nature of state punishment.
The earliest books are an attempt to unite a tribal community through distinctive laws, some of which seemed strange at the time, and continue to be distinctive to this day. And the punishment for failing to obey those laws was frequently death.
To insert those passages into a debate about the death penalty could be very misleading.
Whereas, Jesus attempted to recalibrate what was important. The message of the Good Samaritan is instructive in this case.
But also the “Ye he is without sin.”
Strictly focusing on Jesus’s message could preclude the very idea of a citizen inflicting punishment on another citizen.
That could also me misleading.
My two cents.
Which is why I’d rather that the jury be allowed to take the book into the room with them, rather than relying on somebody’s memory and false-interpretation of what the text actually says.
Because I guarantee you that if I was on a jury debating the death penalty, my faith would factor in quite visibly, and I think that’s true for a lot of people.
Isn’t it better to have the reference?
what if I insisted that everyone consult the Egyptian Book of the Dead before passing judgement in a capital case?
Would you consider that necessary?
It seems to me that all you have to do is tell the lawyers in pre-trial hearings whether you are willing to impose the death penalty or not.
That’s not what I said. I don’t want to compell a jury to use the Bible. In fact, I’d be really upset if someone advocated that.
But if somebody wants to discuss the ramifications for his faith with the jury, then I want them to have access to the source material if they want it.
And if that includes the Book fo the Dead, then so be it.
I distorted your meaning. My apologies.
However, I think you could run into some problems. For instance, someone might want to consult some out-of-print Zoroastrian text, and the whole proceeding could be held up awaiting an airmail package from the Library of Congress.
No apologies necessary… unless of course you were intentionally trying to misrepresent me, which I highly doubt.
The logistics of this kind of thing can be hammered out to make it work. If your only complaint against it is one based on a supply chain, then I think I’ve put a chip in the wall.
And what I’d say about that specific example is that the court shouldn’t be compelled to provide the requested text, but they should allow the use of them.
If a juror wants to use such a text, and can’t provide it, then he’s plumb out of luck. But if he has one at home, let him bring it with.
That’s what I say, anyway.
continue your conversation; I didn’t mean to hijack this thread.
My only response to you here: there are greater issues than logistics…but logistics alone make your proposal problematic.
Well it’s a good thing you aren’t a judge. I think there needs to be greater public education of the mechanisms of the legal system in this country.