Eye for an Eye

Focus on the Family gears up for James Dobson’s appearance on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country tonight, where the good doctor will discuss Terri Schiavo and “judicial activism,” with a statement in today’s New York Times that disparages the entire judicial branch of the United States as being “‘nearly bereft of any moral foundation.'” Tom Minnery, FotF vice president for government and public policy, isn’t talking about the Schiavo case here, but rather the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to throw out the 1995 death sentence given to convicted rapist and murderer Robert Harlan, because the jury that delivered the sentence had consulted biblical verses such as “eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” when determining his punishment. The court ruled yesterday that the Bible is considered a “‘code of law by many'” Coloradans, and some jurors may have been influenced to follow this biblical law when they might have otherwise voted for a life sentence.