U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Landmark Ten Commandment Cases on March 2
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear opening arguments in the landmark Ten Commandments cases involving disputed displays in Kentucky and Texas on March 2, 2004, from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm, announced the court Wednesday.
It will be the first time in 25 years the High Court has heard a case involving the Ten Commandments.
In the first case, Van Orden v. Perry , the Justices will review the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that the display of a Ten Commandments monument in a public park in Austin, Texas, is constitutional since it was more historical than religious in representation. Afterwards, the court will hear arguments for McCreary County v. ACLU, in which the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower courts decision that the framed copies of the Ten Commandments in two Kentucky county courthouses are unconstitutional and should be removed.
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Last Wednesday, the Bush Administration filed an amicus brief in support of Liberty Counsel, the legal group representing the Kentucky counties in the appeal. Twenty-one states, including AL, FL, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MN, MO, MS, OH, OK, NM, PA, SC, TX, UT, VA, WI and WY, have also joined together to file a friend-to-the-court brief in support of the McCreary County case, reported Liberty Counsel.
“We are very pleased that the United States of America and twenty-two states have weighed in on our side,” said Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel, on Wednesday.
“This broad-based show of support reveals the broad impact a decision on the Ten Commandments will have on America and our shared religious heritage,” he continued. “There is no question that the Ten Commandments influenced our law and government. It is nonsense to suggest that public acknowledgments of religion in general, or of the Ten Commandments in particular, somehow establish a religion. To exclude the Ten Commandments from a display on law would be like eliminating stars and stripes from the Flag.”
The American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group specializing in constitutional law, which also filed an amicus brief in the McCreary County case, asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to hear a case in which the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals declared a Ten Commandments poster hung in the courtroom of a state judge unconstitutional.
ACLJ represents Judge James DeWeese of the Richland County Common Pleas Court in Mansfield, Ohio, in the suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. It is the second Ten Commandments case ACLJ has asked the High Court to hear this term.
"This country has a rich history of highlighting documents that serve as the foundation of our legal system - and that includes the Ten Commandments," said Francis J. Manion, Senior Counsel of the ACLJ.
"The display in Judge DeWeese's courtroom serves an educational and informational purpose and we're hopeful that the high court in its consideration of this issue will conclude that displays like Judge DeWeese's are not only proper, but constitutional as well."
U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the Texas and Kentucky cases in October. In 1980, Court banned the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.
