MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- A closely divided Alabama Supreme Court today rejected the appeal of a Stevenson man who fought to keep his wife's grave in his front yard. 
 
 In a 5-3 decision the state's high court rejected a request by James Davis to take up his case after the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals ruled against him in April and in favor of the City of Stevenson. 
 
 Justices Tom Parker, Lyn Stuart, Michael Bolin, Greg Shaw and James Allen Main ruled against Davis. Chief Justice Roy Moore, Justice Glenn Murdock and Justice Alisa Kelli Wise, wanted to grant Davis' petition. Justice Tommy Bryan recused himself, because he had been on the Court of Civil Appeals that had previously ruled in the case. 
 
 
 
 The court did not issue an opinion in the case. 
 
 
 
 Davis argued his family burial plot did not fall under the laws regulating cemeteries so he could bury his deceased wife without getting a city permit, according to attorney Ron Smith, who represented Stevenson. 
 
 Stevenson had cited a number of concerns including the appearance of a grave in a front yard downtown, the effect on property values and the complaints of some neighbors. 
 
 "We're pleased with the ruling of the Supreme Court and believe it to be correct," Smith said. 
 
 
 
 The City of Stevenson successfully sued last year in Jackson County Circuit Court to force Davis to disinter the grave near the front porch of the home the couple had shared. 
 
 James and Patsy Davis had been married for 48 years, the Associated Press reported. She died in 2009 and he buried her according to her wishes. 
 
 Updated to correct Smith's role in case, number of justices who dissented. 
 
 ||||| STEVENSON, Ala. — James Davis figures that his first mistake was asking permission. If a man promises his wife he will bury her in the front yard, then he should just do so. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 But ever since Mr. Davis granted his dying wife’s wish by laying her to rest just off his front porch, he and the City of Stevenson have been at odds. From City Hall to the courts, the government of this little railroad town in southern Appalachia has tried to convince Mr. Davis that a person who lives in a town cannot just set up a cemetery anywhere he likes. On Oct. 11, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed a judge’s decision saying as much. 
 
 But Mr. Davis, 74, is not inclined to back down. 
 
 “They’re waiting on me to die,” he said early last week, standing on the porch of the log house he built and looking out over his lawn, which along with the grave features an outhouse and a large sign demanding that his wife be allowed to rest in peace. “I am not digging her up.” 
 
 Alabama, like most states, has no state law against burying someone on private property, and family graves are not all that rare in the country. Sherry Bradley, the deputy director of environmental services for the State Department of Public Health, said people asked her about private burial several times a week. 
 
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 “You wouldn’t believe the calls I get,” she said, mentioning one woman who wanted to stage a “Viking burial” by putting her deceased husband in a boat and setting it on fire. (“The answer to that one was no,” she said.) 
 
 While private burials are permitted in rural areas, cities and towns often have ordinances governing the burials, to which the state defers. 
 
 Stevenson does not have such an ordinance, though Joshua Slocum, the director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Vermont, said this was not atypical. Many cities lack burial ordinances because the issue of private burial hardly ever comes up, he said. 
 
 “It’s usually the case that people don’t ask to be buried in city limits,” Mr. Slocum said. 
 
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 Mr. Davis and his wife, Patsy, grew up in Dayton, Tenn., having first met when she was 7 and he was 11. She was a teenager when he asked her to accompany him to a strawberry festival. “We went on that one date, and it was me and her the rest of the time,” he said. They were married for 48 years and had five children. 
 
 In her later years, Mrs. Davis came down with an array of painful ailments, including crippling arthritis, and Mr. Davis retired from his job as an electrical worker to take care of her. Eventually, the doctors said that extending her life would only make it more painful. She died in April 2009, and ever since he has slept in his easy chair, finding the bedroom depressing. 
 
 Shortly before her death, Mr. Davis said, she expressed her wish to be buried in the yard of the house where they had spent three decades together. So he went to work, getting approval from the county’s Health Department and pressing the City Council for a permit. 
 
 The Council told Mr. Davis that he had not completed the necessary paperwork, and after two meetings, it voted to deny his request, speaking about its potential impact on property values and about who would take care of it in perpetuity. (The tombstone has Mr. Davis’s name beside his wife’s, and he planned to end up in the yard as well.) Parker Edmiston, the city attorney, said he was concerned about setting a precedent. 
 
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 “If you allow it for Mr. Davis, you allow it for Ms. Adams, Mr. Jones and everyone else,” Mr. Edmiston said, adding that this was the most protracted litigation in the city since a case a few years ago involving something about pigs. 
 
 According to court filings, Mr. Davis declared to the City Council members that he would sue and take his case to the State Supreme Court if necessary. But instead, he just decided to ignore them. 
 
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 “I just got a backhoe and went ahead,” Mr. Davis said, later arguing that the lack of a specific burial ordinance meant that they had no right to stop him. He installed a vault, the funeral home put his wife in the coffin, and on a Saturday morning 10 days after the City Council vote, Mrs. Davis was laid to rest before a gathering of family members. 
 
 The city sued him a month later. 
 
 Mr. Davis waged the legal fight for the next four years, running up thousands of dollars in legal fees. At one point, he even ran for mayor, but lost. In 2012, a Circuit Court judge found in favor of the city and ordered Mr. Davis to move his wife’s remains to a “properly licensed and approved cemetery.” But the grave remained undisturbed as the case made it through the appeals process. 
 
 The neighbors, though admitting that it is a little weird, have gotten used to the grave site up the road. “It’s his wife,” said Margaret Garner, 56. “He’s got the right.” 
 
 But at least according to the courts, he does not. 
 
 Over the weekend, after his denial at the Supreme Court had attracted national news media attention, he was contacted by twin brothers from Southern California: one a screenwriter, the other the director of an organization dedicated to producing a new translation of the Bible. 
 
 The brothers encouraged Mr. Davis to protect his grave site by turning his house into a church, and they even created a Web site advertising the brand-new Stevenson Bible Church, a “family-oriented Bible-believing church: baptisms, weddings, on-site cemetery.” Services were scheduled for every Sunday morning at 10, and Mr. Davis was referred to as the pastor. 
 
 He was not sold on the idea. 
 
 On Friday, Mr. Davis was back in court, and while he warned of “an incident” if the city came onto his property, he suggested a compromise: he would dig up the coffin, cremate his wife’s remains and put the urn with her ashes back in the grave. In her dying days, Mrs. Davis had said she was afraid of cremation, Mr. Davis said. But a lot of time has passed since then. “If she saw herself as she is now, I know she would not mind,” he said. 
 
 Mr. Edmiston acknowledged that there was no law against tombstones or the placement of ashes, but he insisted that the coffin and the vault be removed. So if Mr. Davis fully complies with the city’s order, the yard will end up looking exactly as it does now, only with an urn rather than a coffin underneath. 
 
 This may raise the question as to what the whole fight was about. But Mr. Davis has no doubts. 
 
 “There was never any couple in love like us,” he said. “We was meant to be together.” ||||| STEVENSON, Alabama -- The City of Stevenson is continuing to press its case to remove the remains of a woman buried in the front yard of her family home, while the homeowner, her husband, is determined to rebuff those efforts. 
 
 James E. Davis' court battle with the small city in Jackson County began in 2009 following the death of Patsy Davis. He buried his wife of 48 years in the front yard of their home, according to her wishes. 
 
 The city opposed the effort, citing the appearance of a grave in a downtown yard, the effect on property values and neighbor complaints. The city eventually won a court ruling ordering the exhumation of the remains. Davis appealed and got a stay in the case, but he was unsuccessful in the appeal and the Alabama Supreme Court said Oct. 11 it would not take up the matter. 
 
 Davis's attorney Timothy Pittman said today the city may feel vindicated by the Supreme Court's decision not to take up the case, but he said it could prove to be a meaningless victory, even if Mrs. Davis's remains are exhumed. 
 
 "The court's order is for the remains to be removed, but Mr. Davis does not intend to remove the headstone or the cement vault and the casket will remain," Pittman said. "Hopefully, the city will reconsider since the site will never be moved." 
 
 Pittman said the city is looking to take dramatic steps, but the yard will look the same and the effect will fall almost entirely on Davis. 
 
 "When it comes right down to it, the result hasn't changed anything for anybody but Mr. Davis," he said. "In particular, exhuming a body is a crazy remedy and a really emotionally trying thing. 
 
 "When it's time for a shovel to meet dirt, hopefully the city will see it's not worth it." 
 
 In a filing today, attorneys for Stevenson are seeking costs associated with the litigation and are asking a Jackson County Circuit Judge Jennifer Holt to enforce her March 2012 order that reads in part, "James E. Davis shall remove his wife's remains from its current location ... and inter her remains in a properly licensed and approved cemetery." 
 
 Davis still hasn't decided if he will appeal the order in federal court, Pittman said. They have until Nov. 11 to file an appeal and Pittman said he and Davis continue to believe the court's order is both "logically and factually incorrect." 
 
 
 

– An Alabama man who has been fighting local government since 2009 for the right to keep his wife's grave in his front yard has finally backed down: He has said he will dig up her body and have it cremated, so long as he can put the ashes back in the grave, the New York Times reports. James Davis' compromise comes after four years of legal battles with the city of Stevenson. After he was defeated in the state's court of civil appeals, the case made it all the way to the Alabama Supreme Court, which earlier this month declined to take up the case, the Huntsville Times reports. Davis, 74, who buried his wife of 48 years in the yard at her request, says she had been afraid of cremation, but thinks enough time has passed. "If she saw herself as she is now, I know she would not mind," he tells the New York Times. A city attorney says there's no law against having a tombstone or ashes in your front garden, but says the coffin and the vault Davis installed for it will have to go. But Davis' lawyer says that isn't happening. "The court's order is for the remains to be removed, but Mr. Davis does not intend to remove the headstone or the cement vault and the casket will remain," he says, per the Huntsville Times. So perhaps the fight will live on...