ACLU of Kentucky

ACLU of Kentucky, Walker and Howe v. McCreary Co., Kentucky ACLU of Kentucky, Lee and Durham v.

Friday, April 10, 2009, 3:46 pm

ACLU of Kentucky, Walker and Howe v. McCreary Co., Kentucky
    ACLU of Kentucky, Lee and Durham v. Pulaski Co., Kentucky
United States District Court / Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

    On August 4, 2008, United States District Court Judge Jennifer B. Coffman issued permanent injunctions prohibiting Pulaski and McCreary Counties from posting three separate Ten Commandments displays in their respective courthouses. This ruling represented the culmination of almost ten years of litigation over the Counties’ religiously-motivated attempts to post their Decalogue displays.
    In her opinion, Judge Coffman recapped the litigation history and noted that the Counties’ first displays, erected in 1999, consisted solely of framed copies of the Ten Commandments and were accompanied by overtly religious ceremonies. After the ACLU of Kentucky initiated litigation on behalf of several McCreary and Pulaski residents, the Counties supplemented their Decalogues with additional documents that “were largely religious in nature” in an attempt to avoid First Amendment liability. Judge Coffman agreed with the ACLU’s arguments regarding the Counties’ religious motivations and issued preliminary injunctions prohibiting both the first and second displays. In response, the Counties removed their second displays, appealed the preliminary injunction decision and then, after obtaining new counsel, dropped their appeals and erected the third displays - the Foundations of American Law and Government display.
    The Foundations of American Law and Government displays consisted of “historical documents” including American (and earlier Colonial and British) political and patriotic documents, and the Ten Commandments. Judge Coffman again granted a preliminary injunction barring these displays because the displays’ history showed that the Counties’ purpose in erecting them was predominantly religious in nature and thus in violation of the Establishment Clause. Although the Counties appealed the injunction barring the third displays, both the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court upheld Judge Coffman’s decision.
    In her August 4 ruling, Judge Coffman noted that each of the Counties’ three displays violated the Establishment Clause because: (1) the Counties acted with a predominantly religious purpose in erecting them; and (2) the Counties failed to take sufficient action since the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision to “purge” the unlawful taint from their earlier conduct to justify the third displays.
    The Counties appealed Judge Coffman’s decision to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals where the parties have submitted their legal arguments to the Court. Oral arguments at the Sixth Circuit will likely occur this summer.

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