Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Justices Step Into Dispute Over War Memorial Cross

(CN) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review an injunction barring the government from allowing a Latin cross to be displayed in Southern California's Mojave National Preserve.

In September 2007, the 9th Circuit reasserted an injunction preventing cross from being displayed on Sunrise Rock in the preserve - more than 90 percent of which is federally owned - because the religious symbol violates the Establishment Clause. While the first appeal was pending, Congress passed a law transferring the cross land to a private organization in exchange for a piece of privately owned land on a different part of the preserve.

The 9th Circuit said the transfer "would leave a little donut hole of land with a cross in the midst of a vast federal preserve" in violation of the district court's injunction.

The three-judge panel barred the government from making the deal and ordered it to comply with the original injunction.

Without comment, the justices agreed to take up the case.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...