Summary from a career-related article from The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/19/us-death-penalty-bible

In summary, the article talks about a juror in Texas who pronounced a sentence against a man according to the bible. Now the question is how much the bible (and other sacred texts) can provide us laws and moral, or in another cases, sentences. Definitively, can the bible say to us how to live?.

In Texas Oliver Khristian was sentenced with the capital punishment because a murder 10 years before. The judges would have been based in a piece of scripture of the bible. Much of the judges admitted that they take the bible like a reference from where take resolution about many cases. One of the Jurors said: "the Bible is the truth from page one to the last page", in a clear reference to how to make sentences.

The passage in conflict is the next: “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”. Also, this juror, apparently just one of a four-fifths majority of jury members who introduced biblical notions into the jury discussion later made it very clear that he was a firm believer in capital punishment, sentence that was used against Oliver Khristian.

The article finishes with an analysis about the connection between religion and laws and how faith and human rights could be extremely linked, for example how “prisoners the world over have held on to or even developed faith to see them through their mightiest challenges”. But principally the problem is when religion replaces the laws.