United States Tenth Circuit

In an Establishment Clause challenge to a Ten Commandments monument on the lawn of a county courthouse, judgment for Defendants is reversed where a reasonable observer would view the monument as having the impermissible principal or primary effect of endorsing religion.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/08/2009
• Published 06/08/2009

Judges

• HOLMES, Circuit Judge., Before HARTZ, O'BRIEN, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Daniel Mach, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Washington, D.C. (Lane Dilg, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Washington, D.C.;  Micheal Salem, Salem Law Offices, Norman, OK;  Tina L. Izadi, American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma Foundation, Oklahoma City, OK, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiffs-Appellants., Harry F. Tepker, University of Oklahoma Law Center, Norman, OK, filed an amicus curiae brief for Mainstream Baptist Network and Oklahoma Mainstream Baptists in support of Plaintiffs-Appellants., Ayesha N. Khan, Richard B. Katskee, and Heather L. Weaver, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Washington, D.C., filed an amicus curiae brief for Americans United for Separation of Church and State in support of Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Kevin H. Theriot (Joel L. Oster, with him on the brief), Alliance Defense Fund, Leawood, KS, for Defendants-Appellees., Jay Alan Sekulow, American Center for Law & Justice, Washington, D.C.;   Francis J. Manion and Geoffrey R. Surtees, American Center for Law & Justice, New Hope, KY, filed an amicus curiae brief for American Center for Law and Justice in support of Defendants-Appellees., Philip B. Onderdonk Jr., The American Legion, Indianapolis, IN;  Kelly J. Shackelford and Hiram S. Sasser III, Liberty Legal Institute, Plano, TX, filed an amicus curiae brief for The American Legion # 182 in support of Defendants-Appellees., Steven W. Fitschen and Barry C. Hodge, Virginia Beach, VA, filed an amicus curiae brief for The National Legal Foundation in support of Defendants-Appellees., Roy S. Moore, Gregory M. Jones, and Benjamin D. DuPré, Foundation for Moral Law, Montgomery, AL, filed an amicus curiae brief for Foundation for Moral Law in support of Defendants-Appellees.