A federal appeals court, dividing sharply over the use of biblical quotations in the jury room, reinstated a Los Angeles man’s death sentence today for the murder of a student librarian nearly 30 years ago. Stevie Lamar Fields, now 51, was convicted of three rapes, one robbery, two kidnappings and the murder of Rosemary Cobbs, a 26-year-old graduate student and librarian at USC. According to the trial record, he tied her to the rails of his bed, forced her to write checks to him, ordered her into a car, then shot her six times and beat her until she died. Story from the SF Gate
… and here’s the New York Times version, which commences with this paragraph: “The federal appeals court in San Francisco yesterday upheld a death sentence from a jury that had consulted the Bible’s teachings on capital punishment.”
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