How odd... I agree with something in the Bible...

Grits for Breakfast: Requiring corroboration for eyewitness testimony might have saved Ruben Cantu:

"What can be done to stop the government from convicting and even executing the wrong people? Blogger Clayton Cramer suggested a great reform proposal in the wake of last week's report by the Houston Chronicle that Texas likely executed Ruben Cantu in 1993 for a crime he didn't commit. Writes Cramer:

At one time, a number of states required two eyewitnesses to a murder before the state could impose the death penalty. Why?

Because America was a Bible-believing nation at the time of the Revolution, and reformed many of its criminal statutes in that era to conform to the Bible. Numbers 35:30 says:

Anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses. But no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

Even though I disapprove of the death penalty, using the Bible's standard on this would certainly have prevented the execution of Ruben Cantu for a crime that he apparently did not commit.

Liberals, unfortunately, would never tolerate writing a law with Biblical input today.

That's a terrific idea, and I think Cramer might be surprised at what liberals can tolerate. The reason a two-witness rule would have difficulty being enacted isn't because 'liberals' oppose it, but because prosecutors and police unions would throw the loudest hissy fit you've ever heard. Trust me on this one -- I know from experience.

After the scandals arose surrounding the Tulia drug stings, the ACLU, NAACP, and LULAC teamed up with ministers and victims families from the group Tulia Friends of Justice to help pass a bill requiring corroboration for undercover testimony in drug cases. (The original bill would have required corroboration for any undercover testimony, but the final, passed legislation required it only for confidential informants or 'snitches,' not police officers.) Still, it has had a big impact.

The biblical requirement for corroboration was very much a part of the debate surrounding the Tulia legislation, a message carried door to door at the Texas Legislature in 2001 by Reverends Charles Kiker and Alan Bean from Tulia Friends of Justice. (I've still got a copy of the flyer they distributed with a headline reading, 'The Bible and the ACLU Agree: Require Corroboration for Drug Sting Testimony.')

In fact, as Rev. Kiker would be quick to point out, the corroboration requirement in Mosaic law is more extensive than what Cramer cites. In Leviticus 19:15 we're told that all accusations of crime must be corroborated: 'One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' Jesus (Matthew 18:16) and the Apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 13: 1 and 1 Timothy 5:19) both affirmed this tradition for New Testament believers."