"God Bless This Honorable Court"

But NO one else, the below is a story from Denver involving a conviction being thrown out because some jurors referred to the Bible during deliberation over the death penalty -- what is wrong you ask? That is what I thought! I guess the court is the highest authority accepted during trial, but I actually found it refreshing that some were so concerned about the decision that needed to be made they referred the "highest authority".

DENVER -- Jurors who sentenced a convicted killer to die did nothing wrong when they studied the Bible during deliberations _ including the verse that commands "eye for eye, tooth for tooth," prosecutors told the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday as they sought to have the man put back on death row.

A lower court threw out the death penalty given to Robert Harlan for raping and murdering a 25-year-old cocktail waitress in 1994. Defense attorneys challenged the sentence after discovering five jurors had looked up Bible verses, copied some of them down and then talked about them behind closed doors.

Adams County prosecutor Steven Bernard asked the justices to restore the death sentence, saying jurors should be allowed to refer to the Bible or other religious texts. He said a juror's religious beliefs aren't prejudicial or extraneous to a trial, prompting sharp questions from some of the justices.

"Don't we have a duty to make sure the death penalty isn't imposed under religious passion or prejudice?" Justice Gregory Hobbs asked.