LOS ANGELES, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- A U.S. federal appeals court in Los Angeles has upheld the death sentence of a man whose legal team claimed the jury foreman tainted penalty deliberations.
Lawyers for Stevie Lamar Fields claimed jury foreman Rodney White acted inappropriately by invoking Bible verses, including "eye for eye, tooth for tooth," during penalty deliberations, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
However, the appeals court voted 9-6 to uphold the death sentence.
U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Pamela Ann Rymer wrote for the majority that White's notes passed on to the other jurors were "notions of general currency that inform the moral judgment that capital-case jurors are called upon to make."
Judge Ronald Gould of the 9th Circuit wrote in a dissenting opinion that he believes the sentence should have been tossed.
"It is well settled that religion may not play a role in the sentencing process," he wrote.
The notes passed on from White to his fellow jurors contained 13 biblical passages favoring capital punishment and one opposing it, Gould said.
Fields was convicted of the 1978 rape, robbery and murder of University of Southern California student librarian Rosemary Carr Cobb.
