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
headlines National
- The business of successfully running an in-house department
- ACLU and BigLaw firm use ‘Orange is the New Black’ in hashtag effort to promote NY jail reform
- Justice Gorsuch writes children’s book about ‘Heroes of 1776’
- Companies use ‘deceitful tactics’ to market harmful ultra-processed products with ‘addictive nature,’ city’s suit alleges
- Lawyer accused of trying to poison her husband
- ‘Lawyers Gone Wild’? Filmmaker criticizes bar as he seeks ethics probe of serial killer’s daughter for alleged lie
