Opinion ID: 3051508
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Van Orden v. Perry

Text: In Van Orden, the Supreme Court’s contemporaneous exegesis, neither the plurality nor Justice Breyer’s vital concurrence in the judgment reaches its result by applying Lemon. 545 U.S. at 686 (plurality opinion) (“[W]e think [Lemon is] not useful in dealing with the sort of passive monument that Texas has erected on its Capitol grounds.”); id. at 700 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment) (“While the Court’s prior tests . . . might well lead to the same result the Court reaches today[,] no exact formula can dictate a resolution to such fact-intensive cases.”) (citation omitted).10 As we have discussed, the Van Orden decision is not the first time that the Court has decided that the Lemon test was not applicable in an Establishment Clause case. See, e.g., Marsh, 463 U.S. at 791, 795. Because the Supreme Court issued McCreary, broadly espousing Lemon, contemporaneously with Van Orden, narrowly eschewing Lemon, we must read the latter as carving out an exception for certain Ten Commandments displays. We cannot say how narrow or broad the “exception” may ultimately be; not all Ten Commandments displays will fit within the exception articulated by Justice Breyer. However, we can say that the exception at least includes the display of the Ten Commandments at issue here. 10 The Court’s plurality opinion avoided the purpose inquiry, holding that, due to the “passive” nature of the Texas Decalogue, the Court only need consider the history and context of the display to determine that it passed constitutional scrutiny. Van Orden, 545 U.S. at 691 (plurality opinion). However, the controlling opinion in Van Orden is, of course, that of Justice Breyer. “When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, ‘the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds . . . .’ ” Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977) (quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 169 n.15 (1976)); see United States v. Williams, 435 F.3d 1148, 1157 n.9 (9th Cir. 2006) (“Applying Marks’ rule, we have often construed one Justice’s concurring opinion as representing a logical subset of the plurality’s and as adopting a holding that would affect a narrower range of cases than that of the plurality.”). 3030 CARD v. CITY OF EVERETT Van Orden involved a challenge to an Eagles-donated monolith on the grounds of the Texas Capitol.11 The Capitol is surrounded by twenty-two acres of land, which “contain 17 monuments and 21 historical markers commemorating the ‘people, ideals, and events that compose Texan identity.’ ”12 545 U.S. at 681 (quoting Tex. H. Con. Res. 38, 77th Leg., Reg. Sess. (2001)).13 The Texas monument is identical to the Everett monument, save for the dedication at the base which reads “PRESENTED TO THE PEOPLE AND YOUTH OF TEXAS BY THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF EAGLES OF TEXAS 1961.” Id. at 681-82. “The legislative record surrounding the State’s acceptance of the monument from the Eagles . . . is limited to legislative journal entries.” Id. at 682. While the State selected the location where it was placed, “[t]he Eagles paid the cost of erecting the monument, the dedication of which was presided over by two state legislators.” Id. Justice Breyer based his reasoning “upon consideration of the basic purposes of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses themselves.” Id. at 703-04 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment). He stressed that in “difficult borderline cases,” there is “no test-related substitute for the exercise of legal judgment.” Id. at 700. Further, such analysis, to “remain faithful to the underlying purposes of the Clauses . . . must take account of context and consequences measured in light of those pur11