WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has left in place lower court rulings ordering hearings over jurors in two North Carolina death penalty trials who reached beyond the jury room for biblical references to help their deliberations.
The justices recently rejected North Carolina’s appeal of the two rulings by the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia.
In one case, a juror called her father in search of a biblical verse to help her decide between life and death for defendant Jason Wayne Hurst, who was sentenced to death for the 2002 shooting death of an acquaintance in Asheboro, North Carolina.
The father pointed her to a verse containing the phrase “an eye for an eye.”
The appeals court ordered hearings to determine if jurors were improperly influenced.
- Posted July 06, 2015
- Tweet This | Share on Facebook
New hearings in death penalty cases allowed
headlines Macomb
- Fall family fun
- MDHHS announces enhancements to improve substance use disorder treatment access
- Levin Center looks at congressional investigation of torture and mistreatment of war detainees
- State Unemployment Insurance Agency provides tips on how to stop criminals from stealing benefits
- Supreme Court leaves in place Alaska campaign disclosure rules voters approved in 2020
headlines National
- Professional success is not achieved through participation trophies
- ACLU and BigLaw firm use ‘Orange is the New Black’ in hashtag effort to promote NY jail reform
- ‘Jailbreak: Love on the Run’ misses chance to examine staff sexual misconduct at detention centers
- Utah considers allowing law grads to choose apprenticeship rather than bar exam
- Can lawyers hold doctors accountable for wasting our time?
- Lawyer suspended after arguing cocaine enhanced his cognition
