ACLJ Urges Federal Appeals Court to Permit Ohio Judge to Display Ten Commandments Poster

By Legal Editor

Published: December 21, 2009

WASHINGTON /Christian News/ — The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) today filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit urging the court to clear the way for Ohio Common Pleas Court Judge James DeWeese to display a poster in his courtroom that includes the Ten Commandments as part of an exhibit on legal philosophy. The ACLJ asked the appeals court to overturn a federal district court ruling from October that declared the poster unconstitutional and issued an injunction prohibiting its display.

“For nearly a decade now, the ACLU has been trying to silence Judge DeWeese’s expression of his legal philosophy,” said Francis J. Manion, senior counsel of the ACLJ, who is representing Judge DeWeese in the case. “That philosophy, which holds that a society’s legal system must rest on moral absolutes as opposed to moral relativism, and that abandonment of moral absolutes leads to societal breakdown and chaos, is the same philosophy that was held by the founders of this nation. To say, as the ACLU does in this case, that a judge may not espouse such a view because it is ‘religious,’ is to adopt an erroneous and timeworn interpretation of the First Amendment that is not based on the words, the history or the Founders’ understanding of the Constitution.” (The full ACLJ brief is available online here.)

The poster at issue is designed to illustrate Judge DeWeese’s legal philosophy, featuring two columns of principles or precepts intended to show the contrast between legal philosophies based on moral absolutes and moral relativism. The judge used a version of the Ten Commandments as symbolic of moral absolutes and a set of statements from sources such as the Humanist Manifesto as symbolic of moral relativism.

In its brief, the ACLJ contends the ACLU lacks legal standing in the case, that the lower court erred in determining that the display violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution and violates articles of the Ohio Constitution, and contends that the Judge’s display is protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

The brief also contends that Judge DeWeese’s display is constitutional, stating “Neither DeWeese’s discussion of the contrast between legal philosophies based on moral absolutes as opposed to moral relativism, nor his use of the Decalogue as a means to illustrate that contrast, bespeak a constitutionally problematic religious purpose.”

Arguing that failing to permit Judge DeWeese from displaying his exhibit infringes on his constitutional rights, the brief contends, “Judges not only have the right, but are positively encouraged by the Code of Judicial Conduct, to write, speak, lecture and teach concerning the law, the legal system and the administration of justice. DeWeese’s poster falls well within acceptable boundaries of judicial freedom of speech.”

Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice focuses on constitutional law and is based in Washington, D.C. The ACLJ is online at www.aclj.org.

Tagged with: judicial freedom of speech, legal philosophy, moral relativism, ten commandments