Khristian Oliver is due to be executed on November 5 in Texas (G.W.Bush home state) because the jury decided his fate, after consulting biblical passages advocating death as a punishment for killers.
Numbers 35:16: “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.”
On March 17, 1998, in rural East Texas, Khristian Oliver and three other juveniles were burglarizing the home of 64-year Joe Collins.When the victim surprised Oliver who shot him in the face. He was also beaten around the head with the butt of a rifle.
In a post-trial hearing, jurors acknowledged to the judge that Bibles with highlighted passages were passed around in the jury room.
A juror also said that he believed “the Bible is truth from page one to the last page”, and that if civil law and biblical law were in conflict, the latter should prevail.
and added that life imprisonment was a burden on the taxpayer.
Theocracy or Cultural effectIn Iran or Taliban's Afghanistan you can expect this behavior from a jury and it won't be surprising because they regard the divine law as the supreme law.
But it's not the case in the US where religion is clearly separated from state, the only reason why the court have followed a divine law is because texas population is very religious, and the jurors are representative of the texan population, so the US is far from being a religious state, even if most pastor would give anything to turn the US into a Theocracy.
What is sure is that if Texas separate itself from the US, it would surely turn into a theocracy in a matter of years if not months.
submitted by David
