Rescuing a Commandments display?
on Apr 4, 2005 at 11:10 am
The Supreme Court on Monday gave two Kentucky counties permission to make a new attempt to rescue their courthouse displays of the Ten Commandments from being struck down as a move motivated by religious objectives. The Court allowed McCreary and Pulaski Counties to file a new brief, even though the case was argued a month ago.
The supplemental brief notified the Court that the two counties’ local governing bodies had “repealed and repudiated” their 1999 resolutions that gave an explicit religious justification for posting the Commandments on county courthouse walls. The resolutions wiping out those declarations were passed within days after the Supreme Court held oral arguments in the case, on March 2.
Challengers to the Commandments displays in the two Kentucky counties had made much, in their merits brief and in oral argument, of the resolutions acknowledging “Christian principles” and commemorating “Jesus Christ, the Prince of Ethics.” At oral argument, some of the Justices focused on the 1999 resolutions, and wondered if they were still in effect. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, for example, asked: “That one wasn’t rescinded?…It was adopted and it still is there, presumably?” The counties’ lawyer, Mathew D. Staver, replied: “Presumably. There is nothing in the record that suggests what happened to it. Whether it was repealed or not.”
Staver and his clients apparently were concerned about the effect of such exchanges on the Court’s view of their Commandments exhibits. So, according to the new brief, the counties acted swiftly after the Court’s hearing. On March 8, six days afterward, McCreary County’s local legislative body passed a new resolution, which said in part: “…in order to make it explicitly and unequivocally clear, this Resolution hereby repeals the 1999 Resolution, completely abandons the second display and the Resolution, and repudiates both.” Two days later, the Pulaski County legislative body enacted the identical repudiation language. Both resolutions also contained an assertion that the display of the Commandments was not intended “to endorse religion.” (The 1999 resolutions had accompanied the mounting of the second display, one in which the Commandments was surrounded by other historical documents. The first display had the Commandments alone. Later, the counties put up a third display, a further attempt to neutralize the religious effect of the Commandments.)
The Supreme Court, in agreeing to allow the filing of the new brief, made no comment on its contents, thus giving no indication whether the repeal would have any effect on the ultiimate decision.
The case is McCreary County, et a., v ACLU of Kentucky (03-1693). That case was argued along with a separate case testing the display of the Commandments on the grounds of a state capitol — here, Texas. That other case is Van Orden v. Perry (03-1500). The Court is expected to decide both later this spring.
