HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- One witness who saw 64-year-old Joe Collins being beaten about the head by a rifle-swinging assailant compared it getting pummeled with an ax or a golf club. Lawyers for his convicted attacker complained jurors improperly viewed the weapon as a biblical iron rod. Thirty-two-year-old Khristian Oliver, convicted of the March 1998 slaying during a burglary of the Collins home outside Nacogdoches in East Texas, was set to die Thursday evening in Huntsville. Unsuccessful appeals have argued Oliver’s constitutional rights were violated by jurors who may have consulted a Bible during deliberations. Rebuffed in the courts, Oliver’s attorneys are asking Gov. Rick Perry to grant him a 30-day reprieve.
