A Stitch in Haste

I am on record as opposing jury nullification. It subverts the rule of law, usually requires violating a sworn oath, and can just as easily be used for ill as well as for good.

Having said that, I am now crafting an exception:

On any and all criminal juries on which I may ever be empaneled, if any fellow juror ever quotes the Bible or any other religious text as a substantive component of deliberations, then I will summarily vote "not guilty" without any further consideration of either the facts or the law.

However, since I don't live in the Ninth Circuit, I probably won't have to invoke such a nuclear option:

In a surprising en banc ruling, the Ninth Circuit has rejected a death row inmate's claims that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the jury foreman researched and shared Biblical quotes about capital punishment during sentencing deliberations. The district court granted habeas relief, finding that the notes were extrinsic materials that had swayed the jury to vote for the death penalty.
...
By a vote of 9-6, the Court rejects the petitioner's claims of jury bias. The majority holds that the juror's notes were not improper extrinsic evidence but simply "notions of general currency that inform the moral judgment" of juries in capital cases.

So be it. They have their "notions of general currency that inform moral judgment" -- and I have mine.

The case is Fields v. Brown, No. 00-99005 (9th Cir., Sept. 10, 2007) (PDF - 99 pages).

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Incidentally, it has been noted elsewhere that this case is now among the longest running death row appeals in American history -- 28 years and counting. Discuss.