American Civil Liberties Union v. McCreary County

145 F. Supp. 2d 845, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8955, 2001 WL 717031
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Kentucky
DecidedJune 22, 2001
DocketCIV.A. 99-507
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 145 F. Supp. 2d 845 (American Civil Liberties Union v. McCreary County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Civil Liberties Union v. McCreary County, 145 F. Supp. 2d 845, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8955, 2001 WL 717031 (E.D. Ky. 2001).

Opinion

ORDER

COFFMAN, District Judge.

This matter is before the court upon the plaintiffs’ motion (Record No. 40) for a supplemental preliminary injunction. The court, having reviewed the record and being otherwise sufficiently advised, will grant the motion and enjoin the continued exhibition of the current displays.

Facts

This consolidated case involves the efforts of McCreary and Pulaski Counties and the Harlan County schools to post the Ten Commandments. Having evolved throughout this litigation, the displays at issue originally consisted of only a framed copy of the Ten Commandments. After several other documents were added, this court found that the amended displays 1 failed the “purpose” and “effect” prongs of the three-part test set out in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971), 2 in that they lacked a secular purpose 3 and had the effect of endorsing religion. ACLU of Ky. v. McCreary County, 96 F.Supp.2d 679, 689 (E.D.Ky.2000). Accordingly, this court ordered the immediate removal of the displays from the courthouses and school system.

The defendants then erected a third set of displays which also included the Ten Commandments. Those displays, entitled “The Foundations of American Law and Government Display,” included the full text of the Magna Carta as enacted in 1215 A.D., the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States, the Star Spangled Banner, the Ten Commandments with a Biblical citation, and the Mayflower Compact of 1620; a picture of Lady Justice and an explanation of its significance; the National Motto of the United States (“In God We Trust”) emblem and the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution; and an explaná *847 tion of each of the documents’ historical and legal significance. 4

After the hearing on this motion and resulting settlement negotiations, the McCreary and Pulaski County displays were again modified; the Scripture reference of “Exodus 20:3-17” and the phrase “King James Version” were eliminated from the Ten Commandments document. The Harlan County School Board display remains as it existed at the time of the hearing, but the school board has adopted a “Historical Document Placement Procedure” which implements its resolution for posting historical documents.

The plaintiffs, having asked this court to expand the preliminary injunction to include the current display, 5 must establish: (1) a strong or substantial likelihood of success on the merits; (2) that they will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction; (3) that others will not suffer substantial harm if the injunction is granted; and (4) that an injunction will serve the public interest. Connection Distrib. Co. v. Reno, 154 F.3d 281, 288 (6th Cir.1998). Because the parties focus on the first of these elements and confine their arguments to the “purpose” and “effect” prongs of the Lemon test, the court will concentrate on these aspects of the issue. The court’s analysis is governed by Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39, 101 S.Ct. 192, 66 L.Ed.2d 199 (1980), and Books v. City of Elkhart, 235 F.3d 292 (7th Cir.2000). 6

Analysis

As. Stone and Books direct, the test used to determine the constitutionality of the current display is that set out in Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra. Therefore, we look for the display to have a secular purpose, for its principal or primary effect (as seen by the reasonably well-informed observer) neither to advance nor inhibit religion, and for a lack of excessive entanglement. 7

*848 Purpose

Although the Supreme Court typically gives deference, in religion cases, to the government’s articulated purpose, where the Ten Commandments are at issue the Court has rejected the proffered purpose and found instead that the document is a sacred text which has a religious purpose. See Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39, 101 S.Ct. 192, 66 L.Ed.2d 199 (1980). 8 The government must dilute this religious purpose if a truly secular purpose can be said to exist. See Books, 235 F.3d at 303. This rejection of stated purpose has occurred even when secular symbols were used in conjunction with the Ten Commandments, 9 just as this court must reject the stated purpose even when the defendants place the Ten Commandments in a display with secular documents.

With regard to the current displays, the defendants have articulated a number of purportedly secular purposes. Their stated intentions include: (1) “[T]o erect a display containing the Ten Commandments that is constitutional” 10 ; (2) “to demonstrate that the Ten Commandments were part of the foundation of American Law and Government” 11 ; (3) “[to include the Ten Commandments] as part of the display for their significance in providing ‘the moral background of the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of our legal tradition’ ” 12 ; (4) “to educate the citizens of the county regarding some of the documents that played a significant role in the foundation of our system of law and government” 13 ; and (5) [as stated by the Harlan County School Board] “to create a limited public forum on designated walls within the school district for the purpose of posting historical documents which played a significant role in the development, origins or foundations of American or Kentucky law....” 14 While these stated purposes are to be given some deference, “it is nonetheless the duty of the courts to ‘distinguish a sham secular purpose from a sincere one.’ ” Santa Fe Ind. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 308, 120 S.Ct. 2266, 147 L.Ed.2d 295 (2000) (quoting Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 75, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985) (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment)).

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Related

American Civil Liberties Union v. McCreary County
607 F.3d 439 (Sixth Circuit, 2010)
American Civil Liberties Union v. Mercer County
432 F.3d 624 (Sixth Circuit, 2005)
Mcqueary v. Mercer County
432 F.3d 624 (Sixth Circuit, 2005)
ACLU v. McCreary Cnty
Sixth Circuit, 2003
Turner v. Habersham County, Georgia
290 F. Supp. 2d 1362 (N.D. Georgia, 2003)
Adland v. Russ
307 F.3d 471 (Sixth Circuit, 2002)
American Civil Liberties Union v. Mercer County
219 F. Supp. 2d 777 (E.D. Kentucky, 2002)
American Civil Liberties Union v. Rutherford County
209 F. Supp. 2d 799 (M.D. Tennessee, 2002)
AMERICAN CIV. LIB. UNION OF TN v. Rutherford Cty.
209 F. Supp. 2d 799 (M.D. Tennessee, 2002)
American Civil Liberties Union v. Hamilton County
202 F. Supp. 2d 757 (E.D. Tennessee, 2002)

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Bluebook (online)
145 F. Supp. 2d 845, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8955, 2001 WL 717031, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-civil-liberties-union-v-mccreary-county-kyed-2001.