Constitutional Law

6th Circuit: Ohio judge can't display Ten Commandments

By By The Associated Press

CINCINNATI ? An Ohio judge violated the U.S. Constitution by displaying a poster featuring the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district court's ruling that Richland County Common Pleas Judge James DeWeese violated the First Amendment?s separation of church and state by displaying the poster.

DeWeese's attorney, Francis Manion, says he and his client disagree with the 6th Circuit?s ruling in ACLU of Ohio v. DeWeese and are considering their options. They could ask the full appeals court for a hearing or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The judge hung the poster in his courtroom in Mansfield, north of Columbus, in 2006 after the U.S. Supreme Court let stand lower-court rulings that another Ten Commandment poster he hung in 2000 violated the separation of church and state. The latest poster titled "Philosophies of Law in Conflict" shows the Ten Commandments in a column listed as "moral absolutes" and secular humanist principles in another column listed as "moral relatives."

DeWeese attached a commentary to the poster that said he sees a conflict of legal philosophies in the United States ? between moral absolutism and moral relativism ? and that he believes legal philosophy must be based on fixed moral standards. At the bottom of the poster frame, readers are invited to obtain a pamphlet further explaining DeWeese's philosophy.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio Foundation filed suit against DeWeese, and the district court agreed with the ACLU that the display endorsed religious views and was unconstitutional.

The ACLU also sued in the case of the first poster.

Attorneys for DeWeese argued before the appeals court that the latest display was different from the first one, when DeWeese displayed a poster of the Bill of Rights next to a poster of the Ten Commandments.

But the unanimous three-judge appeals panel said that "replacing the word religion with the word philosophy does not mask the religious nature" of DeWeese's purpose. The poster is not merely a courtroom display of the Ten Commandments, but it "sets forth overt religious messages and religious endorsements," the judges said.

The 6th Circuit rejected DeWeese's contention that the display was private religious expression protected by the Constitution, noting that the poster was in a public space and was placed on the wall by a sitting judge.

ACLU attorney Michael Honohan said he was pleased with the decision.

"If he wants to don the robes of a minister instead of that a judge and make these same comments, he certainly would be within his First Amendment rights, and we would be happy to protect them," Honohan said.

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on February 02, 2011 (boomark / email).