Opinion ID: 184115
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Purpose Test

Text: In determining the government's purpose under the first prong of the Lemon test, a [government actor's] stated reasons will generally get deference. McCreary II, 607 F.3d at 445 (quoting McCreary, 545 U.S. at 864, 125 S.Ct. 2722). However, the secular purpose required has to be genuine, not a sham, and not merely secondary to a religious objective. Id. Thus, [t]he eyes that look to purpose belong to an objective observer, one who takes account of the traditional external signs that show up in the ... official act, from readily discoverable fact. McCreary, 545 U.S. at 862, 125 S.Ct. 2722. [T]he objective observer is considered to have reasonable memories, and Supreme Court precedents sensibly forbid an observer to turn a blind eye to ... context.... [R]eviewing courts must look with the eye of an observer familiar with the history of the government's actions and competent to learn [what] history has to show. McCreary II, 607 F.3d at 446. Under the Lemon purpose inquiry, courts have consistently found the history and context of the action significant. The [purpose] inquiry, of necessity, turns upon the context in which the contested object appears. McCreary, 545 U.S. at 868, 125 S.Ct. 2722 (internal quotations omitted). In evaluating the purpose of posting a religious text, it will matter to [the] objective observer[] whether posting the Commandments follows on the heels of displays motivated by sectarianism, or whether it lacks a history demonstrating that purpose. Id. at 866 n. 14, 125 S.Ct. 2722. See also McCreary II, 607 F.3d at 446-49 (finding that the displays' extended sectarian history in which counties reformulated displays on several occasions would probably lead an objective observer to suspect that the Counties were simply reaching for any way to keep a religious document on the walls of courthouses constitutionally required to embody neutrality.) (internal citations omitted). This Court is compel[led] to consider the government's past violations of the Establishment Clause when evaluating its present conduct. McCreary I, 354 F.3d at 457 (finding it significant that Defendants' original displays, containing only the Ten Commandments, were erected in violation of the Supreme Court's clear ruling in Stone. This defiance ... imprinted the Defendants' purpose, from the beginning with an unconstitutional taint.) (internal citations and quotations omitted). Defendant's stated purpose for hanging the poster is to express [his] views about two warring legal philosophies that motivate behavior and the consequences that [he] ha[s] personally witnessed in [his] 18 years as a trial judge of moving to a moral relativist philosophy and abandoning a moral absolutist legal philosophy. (R. 17, Def. Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. A, ¶ 2.) It is questionable whether Defendant has articulated a facially secular purpose. However, assuming for the sake of argument that Defendant has stated a facially secular purpose, and giving that stated purpose its due deference, the history of Defendant's actions demonstrates that any purported secular purpose is a sham. In 2000, Defendant hung a Ten Commandments poster in his courtroom. Judge DeWeese's stated purpose in hanging this poster was: to use [it] occasionally in educational efforts when community groups come to the courtroom and ask [him] to speak to them. These documents are useful in talking about the origins of law and legal philosophy and about the rule of law as opposed to the rule of man. [DeWeese]... chose the Ten Commandments because they were emblematic of moral absolutism and [Deweese] chose them to express the belief that law comes either from God or man, and to express his belief that God is the ultimate authority. Ashbrook, 375 F.3d at 491. This Court agreed with the district court in Ashbrook that DeWeese's purpose in posting this first Ten Commandments poster was: (1) to instruct individuals that our legal system is based on moral absolutes from divine law handed down by God through the Ten Commandments and (2) to help foster debate between the philosophical position of moral absolutism (as set forth in the Ten Commandments) and moral relativism in order to address what he perceives to be a moral crisis in this country. Id. at 492. Therefore, [d]espite his stated intent to use the display for educational purposes, this Court concluded that DeWeese has not described a role for the Ten Commandments poster in his educational errand other than to admonish participants in talks or programs in his courtroom to look to the Commandments as a source of law. His own testimony belie[d] the secular purpose he wishe[d] to ascribe to it. Id. Finding that DeWeese's purpose in posting the Ten Commandments revealed a predominate non-secular purpose for the display, this Court stated that Judge DeWeese's display of the Ten Commandments violate[d] the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Id. This Court thus affirmed an order of the district court ordering Judge DeWeese to remove the poster of the Ten Commandments from his courtroom. Ashbrook, 375 F.3d at 495. Defendant complied with this injunction. However, in 2006 Defendant created the poster at issue in this case, which includes the text of the Ten Commandments as well as religious editorial commentary. Defendant's history of Establishment Clause violation casts aspersions on his purportedly secular purpose in hanging the poster in his courtroom. So too do the similarities between Defendant's stated purpose in this case, and his unconstitutional purpose in Ashbrook. Defendant attempts to distinguish his purpose in hanging the poster from his purpose in hanging the poster in Ashbrook. He states that his purpose was not clear from looking at the display [in Ashbrook ] and was misinterpreted by the district court as a religious purpose. Consequently, [he] was careful in the new 2006 display to explain his philosophical purpose in the text of the poster. (R. 17, Def. Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. A, ¶ 2.). However, Defendant's statements are unconvincing. As borne out by this Court's decision in Ashbrook, Defendant's views about warring legal philosophies and his concern over society's abandoning a moral absolutist legal philosophy, (R. 17, Def. Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. A, ¶ 2.), that support his decision to hang the poster are based on his belief that our legal system is based on moral absolutes from divine law handed down by God through the Ten Commandments. Ashbrook, 375 F.3d at 492. This plainly constitutes a religious purpose in violation of Lemon's first prong. Although the history of Defendant's Establishment Clause violations is sufficient to reveal his religious purpose, the texts of the challenged poster and Defendant's supplementary pamphlet are also illuminating. Courts have found the challenged text itself significant in determining purpose under Lemon. McCreary, 545 U.S. at 868, 125 S.Ct. 2722 (Where the text is set out, the insistence of the religious message is hard to avoid in the absence of a context plausibly suggesting a message going beyond an excuse to promote the religious point of view.); Stone, 449 U.S. at 41-42, 101 S.Ct. 192; Ashbrook, 375 F.3d at 491. In addition to a redacted text of the Ten Commandments, the poster includes editorial statements by Defendant. These include religious statements such as God is the final authority, and we acknowledge His unchanging standards of behavior, and I join the Founders in personally acknowledging the importance of Almighty God's fixed moral standards for restoring the moral fabric of this nation, among others. (R. 17, Def. Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. A-3.) Similarly, in his supplemental pamphlet Defendant states, We are engaged in a great civil war of legal philosophies in the United States. ... The historically established philosophy bases its distinctions between right and wrong on the God of the Bible. It holds that God has defined for humanity's own good and happiness what is right and wrong and that those standards cannot be altered or abolished. It is a standard of moral absolutes. (R. 16, Pl.'s Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. 5-A.) Defendant's definition of moral absolutes as the standards of the God of the Bible, (R. 16, Pl.'s Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. 5-A.), coupled with his statements regarding the necessity of moral absolutes, (R. 17, Def. Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. A-3.), reveal Defendant's religious purpose. Although Defendant attempts to veil his religious purpose by casting his religious advocacy in philosophical terms, [a] finding of religious purpose is militated by the blatantly religious content of the display[]. McCreary I, 354 F.3d at 455. Replacing the word religion with the word philosophy does not mask the religious nature of Defendant's purpose. The poster's patently religious content reveals Defendant's religious purpose, violating Lemon's first prong, and thus the Establishment Clause.