The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 3-2 yesterday to throw out a death sentence in a murder and rape case because members of the jury admitted they studied the bible for its position on the death penalty during deliberations.

The defendant, Robert Harlan, was convicted in 1995 of kidnapping a 25-year-old cocktail waitress, raping her at gunpoint and then fatally shooting her.

His attorney, Kathleen Lord, argued before the Supreme Court that the jurors had gone 'outside the law' by studying the bible.

'They went to the Bible to find out God's position on capital punishment,' Lord said.

The majority of the Colorado Supreme Court justices agreed with Lord. 'The judicial system works very hard to emphasize the rarefied, solemn and sequestered nature of jury deliberations,' the majority decision said. 'Jurors must deliberate in that atmosphere without the aid or distraction of extraneous texts.'

The dissenting judges said that the jurors looked to the bible for moral guidance but not for legal decisions. 'The biblical passages the jurors discussed constituted either a part of the jurors' moral and religious precepts or their general knowledge, and thus were relevant to their court-sanctioned moral assessment,' the minority wrote.

As a result of the 3-2 decision, the death sentence for Harlan was thrown out and he was sentenced to life in prison.