Opinion ID: 1741615
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The State of Alabama

Text: The State of Alabama, through its Governor and its attorney general, argues that brief invocations at the beginning of court sessions are constitutional and are consistent with Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 786, 103 S.Ct. 3330, 3333, 77 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1983), in which the Supreme Court upheld a state legislature's practice of beginning each session with prayer by a chaplain chosen by the executive board of the Legislative Council and paid out of public funds. The State says that the practices in Etowah County involve far less entanglement of church and state than the practices in Marsh because the clergy members in Etowah County who provide invocations in Judge Moore's courtrooms are not paid out of public funds, whereas the chaplains in Marsh were. The State says that the clergy members who pray in Judge Moore's court are invited on a rotating basis, that they compose their own prayers, that prayers are offered only at the beginning of the weeks when the jury venire is first assembled, and that the prayers are short. [21] The State further contends that the trial court's reliance on Constangy, 947 F.2d 1145, is erroneous because in Constangy the defendants did not offer substantial evidence of the American tradition of opening court sessions with prayer, and because in Constangy the judge himself composed and offered the prayer. The State also contends that the display of the Ten Commandments in Judge Moore's courtroom is constitutional, arguing that the trial court, in making its ruling, ignored two cases upholding the display of the Ten Commandments on state property; the State cites Anderson v. Salt Lake City Corp., 475 F.2d 29 (10th Cir.1973), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 879, 94 S.Ct. 50, 38 L.Ed.2d 124 (1973), and State v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, 898 P.2d 1013 (Colo.1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1111, 116 S.Ct. 909, 133 L.Ed.2d 841 (1996). The State contends, also, that given the legal and historic significance of the Ten Commandments, the display of the Ten Commandments has secular purposes, and that the plaque is an appropriate courtroom decoration, especially in light of the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States has three displays of the Ten Commandments in and about its courtroom.