But religious traditions, laws, or precepts have no place in the courts of the United States of America.

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Under Colorado law, as in other states that authorize capital punishment, that jury will first be "death qualified, " that is, purged of citizens whose faith or moral precepts would not permit them to sentence Holmes to death.

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But whether one agrees or disagrees with the religious precepts that guide Yad L'Achim's actions, the fact is they are not saving a principle.

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The courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures.

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The commune, whose thousand or so residents are almost all progeny of the male founders, follows the precepts of the breakaway Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints based in Utah.

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