Will Supreme Court Revisit Ten Commandments Display Cases?

In today’s NYTimes, Linda Greenhouse asks if the changed composition of the Supreme Court since their split decisions on when public displays of the Ten Commandments are constitutionally acceptable will lead to a more permissive approach to such displays. Since the Court’s ruling in McCreary in 2005, defendant McCreary County, Kentucky and many other states and localities have persevered with efforts to post the Ten Commandments, often creating “Foundations of Law and Government” displays in government settings as the platform for the display of the Commandments.  McCreary County itself is now pressing an appeal from a Sixth Circuit ruling that County efforts to respond to their loss at the Supreme Court by enacting new resolutions authorizing the posting of the Commandments in a multi-document display were a continuation of their prior pattern of unconstitutional behavior. That opinion was accompanied by a dissent from Judge James Ryanurging the Supreme Court to reconsider precedents like McCreary and Stone v. Graham.

JFB