Kristian Oliver is scheduled to be killed by lethal injection Thursday in Texas for the robbery and shooting death of a 64-year-old man in March 1998. But Oliver, 32, was sentenced to death after the jury passed around and consulted bibles as they deliberated. One person on the jury read aloud highlighted passages supporting capital punishment. One of those passages was "And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer,” followed by “the murderer shall surely be put to death."
The U.S. Constitution prohibits juries from “external influence,” and many are questioning if Mr. Oliver should be executed, but every appeal Oliver has made has been ignored. High courts do not believe that the biblical passages influenced the jury. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Amnesty International is pushing for Oliver’s death sentence to be vacated. In their campaign to save Oliver, they say, "Even supporters of the death penalty will agree that no one should ever be executed if there is any suggestion of any unfair trial. Khristian Oliver's trial wasn't just unfair; it was a travesty." They add that "the Texan Board of Pardon and Paroles should now instruct the state governor to commute Mr. Oliver's death sentence and indeed he should himself stay the execution if the board fails to act." AI has an open appeal that can be signed at their website.
Jerry Ward, from The Armband Protest Against the Death Penalty, agrees, stating in a circulated email to his subscribers, that “This is clearly a violation of Mr. Oliver’s federally guaranteed constitutional rights. Texas must not execute Khristian Oliver.”
Even the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the jurors “had crossed an important line.” Yet Oliver’s death sentence was not vacated.
In 2005 Colorado’s Supreme Court struck down Robert Harlan’s death sentence after the jury consulted bibles before sentencing him to death.
Amnesty International and Jerry Ward are also protesting the November 10 scheduled execution of DC Sniper, John Allen Muhammad in Virginia.
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