Prosecutors ask court to reconsider Bible-reading death penalty case
DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- Prosecutors asked the Colorado Supreme Court on Monday for another chance to argue for the execution of a convicted killer whose death sentence was overturned because jurors consulted the Bible during deliberations.
District Attorney Don Quick filed a motion seeking a new hearing, saying the jurors were not significantly influenced by the Bible verses and did not substitute biblical mandates for state law.
He argued that the Bible only "supplied part of the moral underpinning" for assessing Robert Harlan's character and crime.
Harlan was convicted in 1995 of kidnapping, raping and murdering a 25-year-old cocktail waitress a year earlier. He also was convicted of shooting and paralyzing a motorist who tried to help the waitress escape from Harlan.
Harlan's attorney, Kathleen Lord, did not immediately return a call.
In a 3-2 vote, the Supreme Court last month upheld a lower court that overturned Harlan's death sentence, saying jurors might have been unduly influenced after studying such verses as "eye for eye, tooth for tooth." (More on that ruling)
The high court ordered Harlan to serve life without parole.
A strongly worded dissent by justices Nancy Rice and Rebecca Love Kourlis said the evidence did not show jurors were influenced, and that any discussions about the passages were not meant to persuade other jurors to vote for the death penalty.
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