Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1717_4f14.pdf
Page Number: 16

Cite as:  588 U. S. ____ (2019) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

dress  traffic-safety  concerns.11    Id.,  at  420–421,  1384–
1387.  The American Legion reserved the right to continue 
using the memorial to host a variety of ceremonies, includ-
ing  events  in  memory of  departed  veterans.    Id.,  at  1387.  
Over the next five decades, the Commission spent approx-
imately  $117,000  to  maintain  and  preserve  the  monu-
ment.    In  2008,  it  budgeted  an  additional  $100,000  for 
renovations and repairs to the Cross.12 

C 
  In  2012,  nearly  90  years  after  the  Cross  was  dedicated 
and more than 50 years after the Commission acquired it, 
the  American  Humanist  Association (AHA)  lodged  a com-
plaint  with  the  Commission.    The  complaint  alleged  that 
the Cross’s presence on public land and the Commission’s 
maintenance  of  the  memorial  violate  the  Establishment 
—————— 

11 There  is  some  ambiguity  as  to  whether  the  American  Legion  ever 
owned  the  land on  which  the  Cross  rests.   When  the  Legion  took  over 
the Cross, the town of Bladensburg passed a resolution “assign[ing] and 
grant[ing]  to  the  said  Snyder-Farmer  Post  #3,  American  Legion,  that 
parcel of ground upon which the cross now stands and that part neces-
sary to complete . . . the park around said cross, to the perpetual care of 
the Snyder-Farmer Post #3 as long as it is in existence, and should the 
said Post go out of existence the plot to revert to the Town of Bladens-
burg, together with the cross and its surroundings.”  App. 65.  In 1935, 
a  statute  authorized  the  State  Roads  Commission  of  Maryland  to 
“investigate the ownership and possessory rights” of the tract surround-
ing the Cross and to “acquire the same by purchase or condemnation.”  
Id.,  at  421.    It  appears  that  in  1957,  a  court  determined  that  it  was 
necessary  for  the  State  to  condemn  the  property.    Id.,  at  1377–1379.  
The  State  Roads  Commission  thereafter  conveyed  the  property  to  the 
Commission in 1960.  Id., at 1380, 1382.  To resolve any ambiguities, in 
1961,  the  local  American  Legion  post  “transfer[ed]  and  assign[ed]  to 
[the  Commission]  all  its  right,  title  and  interest  in  and  to  the  Peace 
Cross, also originally known as the Memorial Cross, and the tract upon 
which it is located.”  Id., at 1387.  At least by 1961, then, both the land 
and the Cross were publicly owned. 

12 Of  the  budgeted  $100,000,  the  Commission  had  spent  only  $5,000 
as of 2015.  The Commission put off additional spending and repairs in 
light of this lawsuit.  Id., at 823.