By Hector Gutierrez, Rocky Mountain News
March 29, 2005

The juror who introduced a Bible passage in the Robert Harlan deliberations said Monday that she used the "an eye for eye" quotation in response to a juror who said he could not vote for the death penalty because he was a Christian.

"There was a gentleman who believed that just because Robert killed someone it didn't give anyone the right to take his life," the juror, Lana Ochoa, 39, recalled.

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"He had said at that point, 'I'm a Christian, and I can't impose the death penalty on anybody.' And that's when I remembered that there's a verse of the Bible that God has a plan for us, for man to judge Earth, and if a man takes an eye he has to give an eye."

Ochoa was referring Leviticus 24:20-21: "an eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he injured the other, so is he to be injured. Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death."

Ochoa said the juror, Jesus Cordova, felt that the prosecution's case for capital punishment was strong, but because of his religious beliefs he could not vote in favor of executing Harlan.

However, Cordova, 63, said Monday he voted for the death penalty because of the heinous nature of Harlan's attack. Cordova said he vaguely recalled a juror discussing a Bible passage but didn't remember who it was.

Cordova insisted that he does not remember a Bible being brought into the deliberations. If anything, the jury was under instructions not to consult a Bible and told to rely on the evidence, he said.

"You don't hurt someone like that and continually hurt her, hurt her, hurt her, but you got to look at both sides," Cordova said, explaining his vote for Harlan's execution. "I had to do that. I was focusing on the fact that individuals were getting hurt, and there was pain, and something had to be done about the pain."