Robert Harlan was spared execution when the Colorado Supreme Court...

Robert Harlan was spared execution when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled a jury's death penalty recommendation was tainted because jurors consulted a Bible during deliberations.
The court ordered Robert Harlan to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"The Supreme Court finds that it can no longer say the death penalty verdict was not influenced by passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor," the court said in a 47-page 3-2 ruling.
The court said Bible passages, including the verse that commands "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," could lead jurors to vote for death.
Harlan's attorneys challenged the sentence after discovering 5 jurors had looked up Bible verses, copied some of them down and then talked about them behind closed doors.
Harlan was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder and rape of Rhonda Maloney .
On may 23, 2003 Adams County judge John Vigil ordered a new sentencing hearing, but the state had appealed.