Tennessee Ten Commandments Case Moves To Trial

In ACLU of Tennessee v. Rutherford County, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65882 (MD TN, Sept. 14, 2006), a Tennessee federal district court lifted a stay on proceedings, and agreed to move to trial, in a Ten Commandments case. The court had imposed the stay in 2002 pending appellate review of a similar case from McCreary County, Kentucky. The McCreary County case was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in decisions that struck down that county's Foundations of American Law and Government Display. Along with imposing a stay of proceedings in the Rutherford County case, the court in 2002 issued a preliminary injunction against Rutherford County's courthouse display of documents (including the Ten Commandments), finding that the county had an impermissible religious purpose in creating it. In compliance with the order, the display was removed. In its current decision the court has refused to automatically turn its 2002 preliminary injunction into a permanent injunction. It said:

[E]ven if the same public body previously attempted to post the Ten Commandments in an unconstitutional manner, it may be able to post the Ten Commandments in the future in a constitutionally permissible manner. While recent cases provide a "road map" to follow in permissibly displaying documents with religious content, these Rutherford County Defendants must show that they have purged themselves of their original sectarian purpose relating to the posting of the Ten Commandments.