Oliver, Khristian
Date of Birth: 08/26/1977
DR#: 999301
Date Received: 04/23/1999
Education: 12 years
Occupation: Laborer
Date of Offense: 03/17/1998
County of Offense: Nacogdoches
Native County: Harris
Race: White
Gender: Male
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Height: 6' 01"
Weight: 150

Summary of incident: On 03/17/98, Oliver and three juvenile co-defendants were in the process of burglarizing the residence of a 64-year old white male. Oliver and the co-defendants were in the house and Reed was in the vehicle. The victim surprised Oliver and Oliver shot the victim in the face with a 380-caliber handgun. The victim was beaten around the head with the butt of a rifle. Oliver and the co-defendants fled the scene. They were arrested in a motel in Waco, Texas.

Co-defendants: Reed, Sonya Fawn - 99 years; Rubalcana, Benardo - 5 years; Rubalcana, Lonnie - 10 years

Prior Prison Record: None.

Man executed for 1998 beating, murder

By Mary Rainwater - Huntsville Item Online

November 05, 2009

A man convicted for the 1998 beating and murder of a 64-year-old Nacogdoches man was put to death Thursday, marking the state’s 20th execution by lethal injection this year. Khristian Oliver, 32, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m., just eight minutes after the lethal dosage of drugs was introduced into his bloodstream.

Oliver was condemned for the March 1998 slaying of Joe Collins who interrupted the break-in at his rural home outside Nacogdoches, about 140 miles southeast of Dallas.

“I know you are not going to get the closure you are looking for,” Oliver said to the victim’s family. “I pray for ya’ll every day and every night. I have only the warmest wishes. “I am sorry for what you are having to go through.” After expressing love to his own family members, Oliver cited Psalm 23, “The Shepherd’s Prayer,” getting through several verses before being hushed by effects of the drugs. “The good Lord was on our side this time,” Collins’ son Joe Preston Collins Jr. said in a press conference following the execution. “There is closure, despite his sentiment.”

Despite accusations from attorneys that jurors consulted a Bible to justify his death sentence, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Oliver’s last-day appeal and Gov. Rick Perry refused to stop the punishment.

“I felt that it was more self-healing for him than for us,” Collins Jr. said. “He wanted us to feel better...but, you know, its kind of hard... we have been waiting 11 years. “He has been alive and well all this time and I have been without a dad,” he continued. “I looked and I didn’t see any remorse in his eyes. To me, he had a much easier death than my dad.”

State and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, earlier upheld Oliver’s conviction and death sentence, but Oliver’s attorney renewed his appeal to the high court and urged Perry to issue a rare one-time 30-day reprieve.

A witness to the attack on Collins, in which Oliver beat and shot him with a rifle, compared it to someone getting bashed with an ax or a golf club. Oliver’s lawyers argued that jurors who improperly brought Bibles with them into deliberations without the knowledge of the trial judge in Nacogdoches County likened the rifle to a biblical iron object.

Oliver’s lawyer, David Dow, said there was nothing wrong with people bringing their religious values into the jury room. “But they must take great care to insure that, in sentencing a murderer, they follow Texas law rather than religious law, and in this case, the jurors did not do so,” he said.

At an evidentiary hearing, jurors gave various accounts, ranging from one Bible to several being present in the jury room. One testified they had them because they went to Bible study after court proceedings. Another said any reading from the books came after they reached a decision. A third said the reading of Scripture was intended to make them feel better about their decision. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said evidence was contradictory on whether jurors consulted the Bible before or after deliberations and that several jurors testified that the Bible “was not a focus of their discussions.”

Collins was hit so severely and so many times — and also was shot five times — he was nearly unrecognizable when a neighbor found him dead in the front yard of home.

Joe Collins Sr. had left home to pick up dinner on March 17, 1998, and returned to find Oliver, then 20, and 16-year-old Benny Rubalcaba inside his home. Rubalcaba’s 15-year-old brother, Lonny, and Oliver’s girlfriend were outside waiting in a pickup truck. As the two intruders tried to run away, testimony showed Collins grabbed a rifle and shot Benny Rubalcaba in the leg. Oliver fired his pistol at Collins, then retrieved the man’s rifle and beat him with it.

One of the teenagers testified he saw Oliver swinging the rifle at Collins. Evidence showed at least two of five shots to hit Collins came while he was on his back on the ground outside his house. Oliver was arrested in Houston with his girlfriend, Sonya Reed. She turned down a 10-year plea deal, went to trial and received 99 years in prison. Benny Rubalcaba got five years and his brother 10 years. Both are now out of prison.

Bible played role in Texas execution case

By Michael Graczyk - Associated Press

The Houston Chronicle

Nov. 5, 2009

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A man convicted of fatally beating and shooting an East Texas man during a burglary almost 12 years ago was executed Thursday, in a case that gained notoriety because jurors may have consulted a Bible to justify his death sentence.

Khristian Oliver, 32, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m., eight minutes after lethal drugs began flowing into his arms. He was praying a Bible verse when he died.

"I know you're not going to get the closure you are looking for," he told his victim's children, who watched through a window a few feet from him. "I wish you the best." He said he prayed for them "every day and every night" and offered them "only the warmest wishes." Then after telling his parents, watching through an adjacent window, that he loved them, he began saying the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd." He got through several verses before the drugs took effect.

"The good Lord was on our side this time," said Joe Collins Jr. after watching his father's killer die. Oliver's lethal injection, the 20th this year in Texas, came after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-day appeal and Gov. Rick Perry refused to stop the punishment.

Oliver was condemned for the March 1998 slaying of 64-year-old Joe Collins who interrupted the break-in at his rural home outside Nacogdoches, about 140 miles southeast of Dallas. "I felt is was more self-healing for him than for us," Joe Collins Jr. said. "He didn't admit to much. He wanted us to feel better ... but, you know, it's kind of hard. For 11 years, I've been without a dad. "I looked at him. I didn't see no remorse in his eyes. To me, he had a much easier way of death than what my dad did. Too easy."

State and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, earlier upheld Oliver's conviction and death sentence, but Oliver's attorney renewed his appeal to the high court and urged Perry to issue a rare one-time 30-day reprieve.

A witness to the attack on Collins, in which Oliver beat and shot him with a rifle, compared it to someone getting bashed with an ax or a golf club. Oliver's lawyers argued that jurors who improperly brought Bibles with them into deliberations without the knowledge of the trial judge in Nacogdoches County likened the rifle to a biblical iron object. In Chapter 35 of Numbers, a murderer who uses an iron object to kill "shall surely be put to death."

Oliver's lawyer, David Dow, said there was nothing wrong with people bringing their religious values into the jury room. "But they must take great care to insure that, in sentencing a murderer, they follow Texas law rather than religious law, and in this case, the jurors did not do so," he said.

At an evidentiary hearing, jurors gave various accounts, ranging from one Bible to several being present in the jury room. One testified they had them because they went to Bible study after court proceedings. Another said any reading from the books came after they reached a decision. A third said the reading of Scripture was intended to make them feel better about their decision.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said evidence was contradictory on whether jurors consulted the Bible before or after deliberations and that several jurors testified that the Bible "was not a focus of their discussions." Collins was hit so severely and so many times — and also was shot five times — he was nearly unrecognizable when a neighbor found him dead in the front yard of home.

Collins had left home to pick up dinner on March 17, 1998, and returned to find Oliver, then 20, and 16-year-old Benny Rubalcaba inside his home. Rubalcaba's 15-year-old brother, Lonny, and Oliver's girlfriend were outside waiting in a pickup truck. As the two intruders tried to run away, testimony showed Collins grabbed a rifle and shot Benny Rubalcaba in the leg. Oliver fired his pistol at Collins, then retrieved the man's rifle and beat him with it.

One of the teenagers testified he saw Oliver swinging the rifle at Collins. Evidence showed at least two of five shots to hit Collins came while he was on his back on the ground outside his house.

Rubalcaba, taken by friends to a hospital, told police about the attack. Oliver was arrested in Houston with his girlfriend, Sonya Reed. She turned down a 10-year plea deal, went to trial and received 99 years in prison. Benny Rubalcaba got five years and his brother 10 years. Both are now out of prison.

Evidence showed Oliver over the year-and-a-half period that culminated with Collins' murder was responsible for numerous burglaries and thefts, many in the Waco area where his parents live.

Khristian Oliver executed

By Christy Wooten - Nagadoches Daily Sentinel

Thursday, November 05, 2009

For the first time since 1928, a man sentenced to death in Nacgodoches County has been executed. Khristian Oliver, 32, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. Thursday in Huntsville. He was convicted in 1999 of the brutal murder of Joe Preston Collins Sr. The case gained national attention after it was reported that jurors may have referenced Bible verses during deliberation.

In his last statement, Oliver said to the Collins' family that he knew they would not get the closure they were looking for, but that he wished them the best. He said, "I prayed for y'all every day and every night. I have only the warmest wishes. I am sorry for what you are having to go through." To his own family, he said that he loved them and thanked his spiritual advisor, Wayne Whiteside. He then began quoting Psalm 23 with his voice trailing off as he said "my cup over runneth," as the drugs took effect. His family cried softly as they stood in a small room looking through the glass at their son strapped to a gurney.

Joe Collins Jr. said in a press conference after the execution that he thought Oliver's last statement was more for self-healing than for the Collins family. "He didn't admit to much'" Joe said. "He wanted us to feel better and have some closure, but it's kind of hard."

As for the actual execution, Joe said it was not difficult. "Wasn't nothing difficult," Joe said about the execution. "I looked at him. I didn't see no real remorse in his eyes." "Everything was good," Gary Collins said, describing his father. "A lot of good times (to remember). "For 11 years he's been alive and doing things. For 11 years, I've been without a dad."

Gary and Joe Collins stated none of their family ever approached the district attorney or the Oliver family to seek a lesser sentence. They said they always wanted the death penalty. They said they have not had or wanted any contact with the Olivers. "Justice was served," Gary said. "I feel a lot better. We can move on." "There is not full closure," Joe said, referring to the three people with Oliver the night of the murder, "but it's better than what it was."

Collins was found dead in his yard on March 18, 1998, by his neighbor. According to court testimony, Oliver, then 20, and Lonny Rubalcaba were searching inside Collins' home off Camp Tonkawa Road the previous night looking for things to steal when Collins came home and surprised them. Collins shot Lonny, hitting him in the leg. Lonny testified that Oliver fled the room and he heard several more gunshots before Oliver returned. Oliver's girlfriend, Sonya Reed, and Benardo (Benny) Rubalcaba, Lonny's brother, were waiting in a vehicle parked on the side of the road. Benny testified that as he ran toward the home, he saw his brother on the ground and Oliver beating Collins with the butt of a rifle.

Both Rubalcaba boys took plea agreements with Lonny serving 10 years and Benny serving 5. Reed went to trial and is currently serving a 99 year sentence. Dr. James Bruce, a Lufkin pathologist, said during the trial that any one of the gunshot wounds or the blunt trama could have caused Collins' death, according to previous Daily Sentinel articles. Oliver's execution was witnessed his parents, Kermit and Katie Oliver, of Waco, as well as his sister and brother-in-law, Kristy and Tony Pullings, his brother, Khristopher Oliver, and spiritual advisor, Wayne Whiteside. The victim's children were in attendance, including sons Joe Preston Collins Jr., Gary Allen Collins, Alton Ray Collins, and his daughter, Elsie Faye Walker. One son, Alvin Lee Collins, was not present. Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss and District Attorney Nicole LoStracco were present to support the family but did not witness the execution.

In 1928, Tom Ross, 35, was the 56th person executed by electrocution in Texas, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Web site. He was convicted of murder in Nacogdoches. Edward Hagans was also sentenced to death but his sentence was commuted to life in prison in November of 1973 after the U. S. Supreme Court ruled the year before that capital punishment was "cruel and unusual" punishment.

Lethal injection consists of three injections. The first is sodium thiopental, a sedative. Second is pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant that collapses the diaphragm and lungs. Finally, potassium chloride is used to stop the heart. The cost of the drugs used for an execution is $86.08. Oliver's death by lethal injection was the 20th this year in Texas, according to the Associated Press.

Texas execution looms after jury consult Bible

AmnestyUSA.org

9 October 2009

As the international community prepares to mark the World Day Against the Death Penalty on 10 October, Amnesty International has highlighted two cases of people facing execution - one in the USA, one in Iran. A Texas man who faces execution after jurors at his trial consulted the Bible when deliberating his fate should have his death sentence commuted, Amnesty International said on Friday.

Khristian Oliver, 32, is set to be killed on 5 November after jurors used Biblical passages supporting the death penalty to help them decide whether he should live or die. Amnesty International is calling on the Texas authorities to commute Khristian Oliver's death sentence. The organization considers that the jurors' use of the Bible during their sentencing deliberations raises serious questions about their impartiality.

A US federal appeals court acknowledged last year that the jurors' use of the Bible amounted to an "external influence" prohibited under the US Constitution, but nonetheless upheld the death sentence. Khristian Oliver was sentenced to death in 1999 for a murder committed during a burglary. According to accomplice testimony at the trial, 20-year-old Oliver shot the victim before striking him on the head with a rifle butt.

After the trial, evidence emerged that jurors had consulted the Bible during their sentencing deliberations. At a hearing in June 1999, four of the jurors recalled that several Bibles had been present and highlighted passages had been passed around. One juror had read aloud from the Bible to a group of fellow jurors, including the passage, "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". The judge ruled that the jury had not acted improperly and this was upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

In 2002, a Danish journalist interviewed a fifth juror. The latter said that "about 80 per cent" of the jurors had "brought scripture into the deliberation", and that the jurors had consulted the Bible "long before we ever reached a verdict". He told the journalist he believed "the Bible is truth from page 1 to the last page", and that if civil law and biblical law were in conflict, the latter should prevail. He said that if he had been told he could not consult the Bible, "I would have left the courtroom". He described himself as a death penalty supporter, saying life imprisonment was a "burden" on the taxpayer.

In 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the jurors had "crossed an important line" by consulting specific passages in the Bible that described the very facts at issue in the case. This amounted to an "external influence" on the jury prohibited under the US Constitution. However, it concluded that under the "highly deferential standard" by which federal courts should review state court decisions, Oliver had failed to prove that he had been prejudiced by this unconstitutional juror conduct. In April 2009, the US Supreme Court refused to take the case, despite being urged to take it by nearly 50 former US federal and state prosecutors.

'Waco artists' work influenced by son on death row

By Carl Hoover - Waco Tribune

Thursday, October 15, 2009

For 25 years, Waco artists Kermit and Katie Oliver have lived gently in their East Waco home, raising a family while Kermit worked the night shift at the Waco post office on State Highway 6, painting in the mornings. In Houston art circles and beyond, where Kermit’s drawings and paintings were sold, his deliberate avoidance of the limelight was curious. A man who designed stunning scarves for Paris’ House of Hermes and whose works hung in private collections across the Southwest seemed happiest when left alone to his art.

That quietude began to crack in 1999 when a Nacogdoches County jury sentenced the couple’s younger son Khristian, then 20, to death for the murder of a 64-year-old man during a burglary. An appeal drew international attention but was ultimately denied this spring.

This weekend, Kermit and Katie will show their art together with Khristian’s in an Art Center Waco exhibit titled “Oliver Retrospective.” Hanging over the show is this fact: Barring a last-minute stay or sentence commutation, Khristian will be executed Nov. 5.

Sitting in the living room of the two-story home left to her by Waco grandparents Dr. and Mrs. A.T. Braithwaite,Katie Oliver expressed a quiet faith that something or someone will intervene in what she sees as an “aberration.” “For the first few years we were in shock,” she said. “We just couldn’t believe what had happened, that he’d been sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit, and thought that he’d be released at any time.”

Khristian Oliver, a 1998 Waco High School grad, was convicted and sentenced for the death of Joe Collins, who had surprised Oliver and two younger companions while they were breaking into his East Texas home on March 17, 1998, while Oliver’s girlfriend, Sonya Reed, waited in a car. Collins was shot in the face and beaten brutally with his own rifle. The two companions received five- and 10-year sentences, Reed a 99-year term and Oliver the death penalty.

Lawyers for Oliver argued in their appeals that the jury had been improperly swayed by Bibles that some jurors had brought with them into their deliberations. The case became the subject of a documentary Eye for an Eye and a book by Danish journalist Egon Clausen.

But the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August 2008 that while the Bibles should not have been allowed into the deliberation room, there was no clear evidence to indicate they had affected the jurors’ decision. In April, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Oliver’s appeal, and on June 29, 145th District Court Judge Campbell Cox set a Nov. 5 execution date.

Katie Oliver feels strongly her son is innocent, her belief fortified by a vision she said she had several years ago in which an angel took her to the site of the murder, a visit during which she witnessed indications that another man had killed Collins. She captured that vision in a series of woodblock images that’s framed in their home. As she detailed that visitation, Kermit Oliver left the room and returned with a photograph of a young girl, about 11. It’s the daughter that Khristian Oliver never met, a granddaughter whose guardians have stopped her summer visits to the Olivers.

For 11 years, the Olivers have visited their son on death row, bringing him books and permissible art supplies. The product of the latter will appear in the Art Center Waco exhibit, taken from the Olivers’ home. A necklace crafted from bits of pencil circles yellow crosses in a framed work created by Khristian.A smaller, finely painted watercolor of a waterbird hangs in a sitting room, an example of Khristian’s control in painting. “He’s focused now,” Kermit said with a small smile.

Khristian is the only one of the Olivers’ three children who paints. Eldest daughter Kristy lives in League City with her two children while Kristopher, the elder son, lives in Waco and works with the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, Katie said. Kermit said the ordeal of the last 11 years has been draining but noted many of his friends, backers and patrons have rallied to help with legal fees and moral support. “The continuity of friendship . . . for the last 11 years has been a godsend,” he said.

One longtime friend and supporter is Houston art dealer Geri Hooks, whose Hooks-Epstein Gallery has represented Kermit’s works for 20 years. He is, she says, a talent that too few people know. “I can’t tell you how many galleries and collectors contact me, clamoring for his work. Kermit is famous in spite of himself,” she said. “I would put him in the top five of artists in America today.”

Kermit, a native of Refugio, studied art at Texas Southern University in the 1960s, where he met Katie, also studying art. The two married in 1962, and Kermit began teaching after graduating in 1968. While his painting was winning praise in the Houston art scene, he found himself increasingly uncomfortable with the personal promotion demanded of him. “I’m not a public, outgoing person, but to promote your art, you have to be that way,” he said.

He left teaching to take a job with the U.S. Postal Service in 1978, a position that provided a steady salary, pension and benefits to care for a family in a more secure way than an artist’s life. “I haven’t regretted it since,” he said.

The Olivers moved to Waco in 1984, where Kermit continued his postal service work at night and artwork by day, painting in a sideroom with a northern exposure and stacks of National Geographic magazines and books. Kermit’s work during his Houston years built his reputation. He was the first black artist represented by a major gallery, the DuBose Gallery, in Houston, and his relationship with the House of Hermes started in 1982. The paintings and scarf designs he’s made during his time in Waco have cemented it.

The last 11 years have shown occasional flashes of the pain and anguish Kermit felt for his son, as one might expect, Hooks said. “Every artist who’s worth anything at all is affected by what’s going on around them in their lives,” she said.

The most emotion was captured in the self-portraits that Kermit did for every biennial gallery show, she said. “One year, it was so angry, I didn’t recognize it,” she said. “I cannot imagine what they’re going through.” Kermit’s pain may have shaped one of his most brilliant works, his 2003 “Resurrection,” commissioned by Houston’s Trinity Episcopal Church for its Morrow Chapel.

The 9-foot altarpiece shows a young, vibrant Christ stepping out of a tomb, his head wreathed in lilies. Below his feet are symbols of life, death and resurrection. Behind him, a mushroom cloud and bold orange hue suggest a power to conquer death. “Resurrection” demands attention, Trinity assistant rector Murray Powell said. “There are two basic, raw emotions that people express: ‘What the hell is it?’ and ‘Oh, my!’ Nobody gets away clean,” he said.

Viewers’ reaction, in fact, was intense enough that church officials began locking the chapel after hours for fear someone might damage the work. One fact chapel visitors may not know that Kermit knows well: The face of Christ is Khristian’s face.

Khristian Oliver

ProDeathPenalty.com

On April 20, 1999, a Nacogdoches County, Texas jury convicted Khristian Oliver of capital murder based on his killing of Joe Collins during the commission of a burglary. It was alleged at trial that on March 17, 1998, Oliver, his then-girlfriend Sonya Reed, and cohorts Bennie and Lonny Rubalcaba, were driving around Nacogdoches County, Texas, when they stopped at the empty home of Mr. Joe Collins to burglarize his house. Oliver and Lonny Rubalcaba broke into the house using bolt cutters, while Reed and Bennie Rubalcaba remained in their vehicle. Joe Collins came home during the break-in. Oliver and Rubalcaba tried to escape out a back door, but the door was bolted from the outside and the windows were barred. Joe then fired a shot from his gun, hitting Rubalcaba in the leg. Oliver and Rubalcaba were also armed with a pistol, and with a rifle they had found in Joe’s home. After Joe shot Rubalcaba, Khristian Oliver shot back. Oliver fired some shots inside the house and some outside in the front yard, where Joe ended up on his back. According to the trial testimony of Bennie Rubalcaba, Oliver then struck Joe several times in the head with the butt of the rifle. A forensic expert at trial testified that the gunshots probably were fatal, but that the blows from the rifle could have been fatal on their own. The group departed the scene, bringing the wounded Lonny Rubalcaba to a hospital, where they reported he had been the victim of a drive-by shooting. The next day, however, police officers interrogated the Rubalcabas, who provided information – and later testimony – that led to Khristian Oliver’s arrest and subsequent conviction.

No Reprieve for Khristian Condemned by Bible Passages

JonathanTurley.org

August 17, 2008

Convicted murder Kristian Oliver was a bit put out when he learned that jurors relied not simply on the evidence but biblical passages during their deliberations to convict him. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that the use of a biblical passage in jury deliberations is not enough to warrant reversal of his death sentence.

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas found that, while jurors cited the passage, it did not influence the jury’s decision — a rather difficult finding to prove or disprove.

The passage in question is from Numbers:

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. And if he smite him with throwing a stone, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. Or if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay him. Numbers 35:16-19 (King James).

That seems pretty inimical to a fair deliberation based solely on the evidence in the case. Indeed, the opinion itself shows that the reading triggered a more comprehensive discussion of the biblical requirements in dealing with murderers.

One juror, Kenneth Grace, read the Bible aloud to a small group of jurors in the corner of the jury room. McHaney also testified that fellow juror Donna Matheny mentioned to him that the Bible contained a passage discussing who is a murderer and who should be put to death, and that he asked Matheny if he could read her Bible, which Matheny had highlighted. McHaney recalled reading verses pertaining to the importance of obeying the law of the land, the commandment that “thou shalt not kill,” and the passage Matheny pointed out that discussed who is a murderer and who deserves a death sentence. In particular,here called reading a passage that says that if a man strikes someone with an iron object so that he dies, then he is a murderer and should be put to death.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that outside sources used in the jury room are presumptively prejudicial to the proceedings. Parker v. Gladden, 385 U.S. 363, 364-65 (1966) (“the evidence developed against a defendant shall come from the witness stand in a public courtroom where there is full judicial protection of the defendant’s right of confrontation, of cross-examination, and of counsel”). Yet, the Ninth Circuit refused to reverse in a similar case.

This case seems to involve a much more serious use of an external religious text than the mere case of a juror taking a Bible into the proceedings as a personal item of support. Here, there was direct consultation that linked passages to the case at hand and the moral basis for the ultimate punishment.

Fifth Circuit rules on jurors using Bible during sentencing deliberations

August 15, 2008

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Thursday refused to grant a writ of habeas corpus to convicted murder Khristian Oliver, who had argued that his Sixth and Eighth Amendment rights were violated when the jury took Bible passages into account when deliberating on his eventual death sentence. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas had made a factual finding that the Bible did not influence the jury’s decision, and the Fifth Circuit held that Oliver did not present clear and convincing evidence rebutting that finding.

'Ten Commandments Judge' defends Texas jury's use of Bible

By Allie Martin - OneNewsNow.vom

March 27, 2008

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is arguing in a legal brief that a Texas jury's use of the Bible did not taint deliberations in a death penalty case.

December 30, 2007

The death sentence of a Texas man is under scrutiny because jurors at his trial had Bibles with them when they decided he should be executed

Jurors sentenced Khristian Oliver to the death penalty in 1999 after he was convicted of brutally killing a 64-year-old man during a home break-in. His lawyers contend jurors improperly relied on religious beliefs that called for death as punishment for murder.

"This is headed toward a showdown on a very fundamental question on the use of the Bible," Winston Cochran, Oliver's lawyer, said.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month upheld the conviction and denied his request for a hearing on the Bible-related claims, but agreed to consider written arguments and then hold oral arguments.

In their ruling Nov. 16, the judges asked lawyers to explain whether the jurors' consultation of the Bible amounted to "an external influence that raises a presumption of prejudice."

At issue is a verse in Chapter 35 of Numbers which, in the New American Standard Bible, reads: "But if he struck him down with an iron object, so that he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death." Other versions of the Bible have similar passages, some of them referring to an "iron rod" as the weapon.

Special Prosecutor Sue Korioth said there never was an implication jurors voted based on Scripture or had any kind of religious discussion.

"Several of them carried Bibles in and out like my daughter carries her "Seventeen" magazine," she said. "It was just their reading material."

At a state district court hearing two months after the trial, four jurors testified about the presence of Bibles in the jury room and gave varying accounts, ranging from one Bible to several being present. One juror testified he and fellow jurors carried the books with them because they would go to Bible study in the evenings following the day's court proceedings,

Another juror testified any reading from the books came after they had reached a decision. A third said the reading of Scripture was intended to make people feel better about their decision.

Oliver is at a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison where inmates undergo treatment for psychiatric conditions and could not be interviewed.

Cochran had until the end of December to present written briefs to the court. Prosecutors will then have an opportunity to respond. Oral arguments before the New Orleans-based court are not likely until later in 2008.