Jury sentenced man to death after reading texts from the Bible

Published on Thursday 15 October 2009 22:07

AMNESTY International has issued an urgent appeal for a man facing execution in three weeks' time after jurors at his trial consulted passages from the Bible when deciding his fate.

Khristian Oliver, 32, is set to be executed in Texas on 5 November. He was sentenced to death in 1999 for a murder committed during a burglary.

While deciding whether he should live or die, jurors at his trial consulted copies of the Bible, including text supporting the death penalty, calling into serious question their impartiality, human rights campaigners said yesterday.

In a post-trial hearing, four jurors acknowledged to the judge that Bibles had been in the jury room, and highlighted passages were passed between jurors.

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". However, the trial judge ruled the jury had not acted improperly, a view upheld by a Texas appeals court.

Further revelations have followed. In 2002 a journalist interviewed another juror who said that "about 80 per cent" of the jurors had "brought scripture into the deliberation", and jurors had consulted the Bible "long before we ever reached a verdict".

He told the journalist he believed "the Bible is truth from page one to the last page", and if civil law and Biblical law were in conflict the latter should prevail. If he had been told he could not consult the Bible: "I would have left the courtroom". The juror described himself as a death penalty supporter and saw life imprisonment as a "burden" on the taxpayer.

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said: "Religious texts provide consolation and spiritual guidance for billions of people the world over, but this use of the Bible to decide life or death in a capital trial is deeply, deeply troubling.

"Even supporters of the death penalty will agree that no-one should ever be executed if there is any suggestion of any unfair trial. Khristian Oliver's trial wasn't just unfair, it was a travesty. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles should now instruct the state governor to commute Mr Oliver's death sentence, and he should himself stay the execution if the board fails to act."

Texas is one of 35 US states to retain the death penalty. The US has seen a fall in the number of executions in recent years, but still executes dozens every year. Last year there were 37 executions – the fourth-highest number of any country in the world, Amnesty International said.