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Tuesday, February 26, 2002
By Torsten Ove, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal yesterday to hear an Indiana case testing whether the display of the Ten Commandments on government property violates the Constitution isn't likely to have an impact on a local suit challenging a plaque of the Commandments on the Allegheny County Courthouse.
Perry Napolitano, a First Amendment specialist at the law firm Reed Smith who is representing the county for free, said the decision has "no substantive effect" on the pending case before U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose.
The county is fighting an effort by a Washington, D.C. group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, to remove the 83-year-old bronze plaque from an outside courthouse wall.
Both sides have filed motions in the case and responses by both sides are due Thursday.
The local debate is similar to the one in Indiana and another case from that state that the Supreme Court refused to hear in May.
Allegheny County maintains that the bronze plaque is part of the historical and architectural character of the courthouse. Among its exhibits are photos of other historical plaques, depositions from experts and even a Frank & Ernest cartoon in which the characters are standing in a law library and one says, "It's frightening when you think that we started out with just 10 Commandments."
Napolitano said that cartoon was included because it illustrates the popular opinion that the Commandments formed the early foundation of American law.
Americans United, which is representing local atheists Andy Modrovich of West Mifflin and James Moore of Squirrel Hill, says the plaque violates the Constitutional establishment clause separating church and state.
In the Indiana case, Gov. Frank O'Bannon wanted a stone monument installed on the state house grounds in Indianapolis to replace one defaced by a vandal. The Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sued, and a lower federal court blocked the installation on grounds that it promoted a religious purpose.
In May, the high court sidestepped the issue in another case out of Indiana, refusing to hear an appeal of a lower-court ruling holding that the city of Elkhart, Ind., violated the First Amendment by displaying the Ten Commandments on the lawn of its town hall.
Napolitano said at the time the decision didn't affect the one in Allegheny County, and he said yesterday the latest decision doesn't, either.
Although the Supreme Court has so far dodged the debate, some of the justices have already shown where they stand. In the Elkhart case, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote that the display "does not express the city's preference for a particular religion or religious belief in general. It simply reflects the Ten Commandments' role in the development of our legal system."
That's essentially the position of Allegheny County in the local case.
But Justice John Paul Stevens noted that the first two lines of the Commandments on the Elkhart display read: "The Ten Commandments: I Am the Lord Thy God." Stevens wrote that the line "is rather hard to square with the proposition that the monument expresses no particular religious preferences."