Posted on 11/08/2011 1:56:51 AM PST by markomalley
Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas denounced his colleagues’ decision not to hear a case that would have allowed them to establish a clear standard for judging religious displays on government property.
“Today the Court rejects an opportunity to provide clarity to an Establishment Clause jurisprudence in shambles,” Thomas said in an Oct. 31 dissent.
He explained that the Supreme Court’s disjointed “jurisprudence has confounded the lower courts and rendered the constitutionality of displays of religious imagery on government property anyone’s guess.” Thomas’ dissenting opinion responded to the court’s decision to reject consideration of a prohibition on crosses placed along the roadside in Utah to commemorate fallen officers.
The case involved 12-foot-high white crosses placed by the Utah Highway Patrol Association at or near areas where officers had been killed in the line of duty.
American Atheists, Inc. sued Utah officials, claiming that the 13 crosses violated the establishment clause because they bore the symbol of the Utah Highway Patrol and many of them were located on state property.
In August, a Tenth Circuit court ruled that the crosses were unconstitutional.
The Utah Highway Patrol Association appealed to the Supreme Court, but in an Oct. 31 decision, the court declined to hear the case.
In his dissent, Thomas criticized the Supreme Court’s failure to implement “a clear, workable standard” for establishment clause cases.
He explained that the lack of a clear standard has resulted in arbitrary decisions and “wildly divergent outcomes.”
In April 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that a seven-foot cross erected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars would be allowed to remain on the property.
In Jan. 2011, a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the 29-foot Mount Soledad Memorial Cross in a San Diego public park violated the establishment clause. Supporters of the cross are appealing to the Supreme Court.
“Since the inception of the endorsement test, we have learned that a creche displayed on government property violates the Establishment Clause, except when it doesn't,” Thomas said.
“Likewise, a menorah displayed on government property violates the Establishment Clause, except when it doesn't.”
“A display of the Ten Commandments on government property also violates the Establishment Clause, except when it doesn't,” he added.
“Finally, a cross displayed on government property violates the Establishment Clause, as the Tenth Circuit held here, except when it doesn't.”
Thomas criticized the court for causing confusion by using different tests to evaluate cases rather than establishing a clear standard.
He said that because the Supreme Court’s precedents in establishment clause cases “remain impenetrable,” the rulings of lower courts also “remain incapable of coherent explanation.”
Thomas called on his fellow justices to clarify the confusion surrounding religious display cases in recent years.
“We should not now abdicate our responsibility to clean up our mess,” he said.
Whom did what ?
Thanks markomalley.
Welcome to the 21st century. So far, that sort of behavior is about the only sort of behavior I have seen.
If so, and obviously Thomas was one who voted in the affirmative, what happened to the other 3 so-called "Conservatives" on the bench?
Metaphysical refinements and tests of logical skill that can make Anything mean everything or nothing at will...’Thomas Jefferson spoke of such when writing to his friend Justice Wm. Johnson June 1823 In 1858 The Third edition of Justice Joseph Story ‘s Commentaries On the Constitution of the United States in the preface p.viii Justice Story said metaphysical refinements and tests of logical skill were “out of place” in understanding the Constitution. IMO the “endorsement test”
which seems the “test of logical skill favored by the Courts
and by the Enemy —in the Case that destroyed the Camp Smith
(Island of Oahu Memorial Cross to Marines who had given ALL in the Republic Of Vietnam erected in 1966 -destroyed by Court order 1988 -Schofeild Barracks Cross destroyed by court order in 1998. the Mojave Cross the supreme Court had said could remain -but it got stolen as soon as the Court remanded the case back to the lower Court. I suspect it is the argument behind the demand the Mt.Soledad Cross likewise be destroyed. And the case in Montana -should it end up in Court -that Memorial erected by former members of the 10th Mountain Div. (WWII ) on Big Mountain in Montana
reflecting Memorials seen in Italy during the War.Maintained by the Knights of Columbus .
Had the supreme Court defended the First Amendment the terms used as they were understood when adopted — None of this CRAP would have happened. I agree with Clarence Thomas.
The deal is this Court, or anybody, you mess with the graves of my ancestors you are in real trouble. You mess with somebody else's graves of their ancestors you are in the same sort of trouble.
Just imagine if America had been denied this great intellect because of fraudulent, uncorroborated sexual harassment charges.
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