More Cert. Grants

[Christopher C. Lund]

        Cert. also granted in two Ten Commandments cases, ACLU of Kentucky 
v. McCreary County, Kentucky, 354 F.3d 438 (6th Cir. 2003) and Van Orden v. 
Perry, 351 F.3d 173 (5th Cir. 2003).

http://www.goldsteinhowe.com/blog/archive/2004_10_10_SCOTUSblog.cfm#109759205921446713
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=3&u=/ap/20041012/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_ten_commandments

        After reading McCreary and Perry again, they are very different 
cases.  McCreary has improper purpose written all over it -- Judge Gibbons, 
who is the sort of moderate conservative that perhaps best would reflect the 
Kennedy/O'Connor position, rejected (laughed at?) the claim there was a 
secular purpose there.  But Van Orden's just the opposite -- it's as good a 
case of the legitimate use of the Ten Commandments as it gets.

        So split the difference and confuse appellate courts for the next 
twenty years (i.e. Lynch/Allegheny County)?




From: "Anthony Picarello" <apicarello at becketfund.org>
Reply-To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics 
<religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu>
To: "Law & Religion issues for Law Academics" <religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu>
Subject: Cert granted in Cutter
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:30:43 -0400

Supreme Court to Review Inmate Freedom Law

By GINA HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to consider the 
constitutionality of a federal law that requires state prisons to 
accommodate inmate religions, from Christianity to Satanism.

The case does not question inmates' right to practice their religion, but 
asks whether states have to accommodate requests for a particular diet, 
special haircut or religious symbols.

Some states argue that a 2000 law intended to protect the rights of 
prisoners amounts to an unconstitutional government promotion of religion - 
and that it makes prisons more dangerous.

States that receive federal funds must accommodate prisoners' religious 
beliefs unless wardens can show that the government has a strong reason not 
to, under a 2000 law.

The Supreme Court will consider an appeal from Ohio inmates, described as a 
Wiccan witch, a Satanist, a racial separatist who is an ordained minister of 
the Christian Identity Church, and others.

The state inmates had sued claiming they were denied access to religious 
literature and ceremonial items. The Cincinnati based-6th U.S. Circuit Court 
of Appeals used their case to strike down the law, called the Religious Land 
Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, on grounds that it violates the 
separation of church and state.

"All of (the law's) defenders and antagonists, whether public or private, 
whether winners or losers below, are all of one voice on the need for some 
review in some case, and Ohio joins that chorus," Ohio Solicitor Douglas 
Cole told the court.

He said that inmates can use religion as a cover to promote gangs.

The inmates' lawyer, Ohio State University law professor David Goldberger, 
said that prisoners are stripped of many of their rights, but access to 
religious should not be one of them.

The First Amendment both guarantees the freedom to exercise one's religion 
and says government may not "establish" religion. As interpreted by the 
Supreme Court, the Establishment Clause has come to mean that government is 
generally prohibited from promoting or endorsing religion.

Before Congress acted, "prisoners, detainees and individuals 
institutionalized in mental hospitals faced substantial and unwarranted 
burdens in freely practicing their faiths," the Supreme Court was told by 
Bush administration lawyers. The administration has defended the law.

The case is Cutter v. Wilkinson, 03-9877.
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