Back to Court to Defend Ohio Judge

The ongoing legal battle to protect the constitutional rights of an Ohio judge continues. And, today, we filed a brief on his behalf in a federal appeals court.

The ACLU continues its legal assault against Judge James DeWeese, who sits on a Common Pleas Court in Ohio. The latest chapter involves a display in his courtroom that includes the Ten Commandments as part of an exhibit on legal philosophy.

In October, a federal district court in Cleveland declared the exhibit unconstitutional and issued an injunction prohibiting its display.

We represent Judge DeWeese and today filed a critical brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati urging the court to clear the way for the Judge to display that exhibit.

What's especially troubling is that for nearly a decade now, the ACLU has been trying to silence Judge DeWeese's expression of his legal philosophy.

At issue is a poster designed to illustrate Judge DeWeese's legal philosophy. The poster features two columns of principles or precepts intended to show the contrast between legal philosophies based on moral absolutes and moral relativism. The judge used a version of the Ten Commandments as symbolic of moral absolutes, and a set of statements from sources such as the Humanist Manifesto as symbolic of moral relativism.

Judge DeWeese's legal philosophy is clear: society's legal system must rest on moral absolutes as opposed to moral relativism and that abandonment of moral absolutes leads to societal breakdown and chaos. The fact is that this is the same philosophy that the founders of this great nation embraced.

In our brief, we make the arguments that the ACLU lacks legal standing in the case, that the lower court erred in determining that the display violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution and violates articles of the Ohio Constitution, and contends that the Judge's display is protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

And we contend that Judge DeWeese's display is constitutional. "Neither DeWeese's discussion of the contrast between legal philosophies based on moral absolutes as opposed to moral relativism, nor his use of the Decalogue as a means to illustrate that contrast bespeak a constitutionally problematic religious purpose," the brief argues. "Moreover, a reasonable observer of the poster would view the poster as a statement about legal philosophy, morality, and ethics, not theology or religion."

In fact, prohibiting Judge DeWeese from displaying his exhibit actually infringes on his constitutional rights. "Judges not only have the right, but are positively encouraged by the Code of Judicial Conduct, to write, speak, lecture, and teach concerning the law, the legal system, and the administration of justice. DeWeese's poster falls well within acceptable boundaries of judicial freedom of speech," the brief explains.

According to the brief: "The reasonable observer in DeWeese's courtroom, given all of the various factors discussed above — knowledge of the forum, the physical setting, the specific individualized words of the poster itself — is far more likely to see the display as what it is intended to be: a personal expression of a personal opinion of an individual who works for the government, rather than a statement of official policy being made by the government."

You can read our brief in the case here.

This case is just the latest episode in the ACLU's crusade to rewrite our nation’s history and heritage – purging any references of our country’s Judeo-Christian roots. The ACLU filed its first case against Judge DeWeese in 2001.

Oral arguments at the appeals court will take place in early 2010.
http://www.aclj.org/TrialNotebook/Read.aspx?ID=893


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