Ninth Circuit, Ten Commandments

In a case that drips with irony, a 26-year old attorney has filed a complaint in San Francisco alleging that the official seal of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals violates the Constitution, as it contains two tablets with ten squiggly lines that the attorney maintains represent the Ten Commandments. The seal can be seen at the upper left corner of the court's website.

The Ninth Circuit is, of course,the circuit that held that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance were unconstitutional in the public school setting. The Ninth Circuit has opinions reversed by the Supreme Court at a higher rate than any other court in the country. And the Ninth Circuit is, of course, the home of Michael Newdow, atheist-lawyer-doctor-professional litigant.

Newdow was asked his opinion of the current lawsuit, and apparently he doesn't approve. "I'm not impressed. It could be the Bill of Rights. I don't know what the heck that is."

And in a severe case of name-calling between the pot and the kettle, "Newdow said [plaintiff Ryan C.] Donlon appears to be hostile toward religion. 'You look at that seal and you don't get the sense that someone is pushing religion,' he said. 'It's not the same as putting up a giant monument out of nowhere.'"

Hat tip to Howard Bashman at How Appealing for this story. He also has some "creative defenses the Ninth Circuit could employ in the lawsuit" here. My two favorites: "That's not the Ten Commandments; rather, it's a list of ten surefire ways to avoid reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court, only no one can read the fine print because it's too small," and "That's not the Ten Commandments; rather, it's a list of which Ninth Circuit cases the U.S. Supreme Court is most likely to reverse this Term."