Tag Archives: ZZ: Trunk v City of San Diego

News from The Associated Press: A nonprofit legal firm, Liberty Institute in Washington, D.C., planned to file its petition Thursday . . .

SignOnSanDiego.com: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order Tuesday delaying the effect of its ruling from January, which said the cross violated the constitutional separation between church and state.

World Net Daily: “Although we are disappointed that the Ninth Circuit denied requests to have the full court rehear this case, we are encouraged that five of the judges agree with us and believe the cross should stay,” said Kelly Shackelford, attorney for the memorial . . . Joseph Infranco, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, also praised the 23-page dissent.”The political agenda of secularist groups should not be allowed to uproot memorials that honor the sacrifices of America’s fallen heroes and their families,” he said. [more]

The case could be the third major controversy involving such crosses to head to the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years and is the fourth recent federal case–all of which has led to increased public discussion on the subject.

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Joseph Infranco and ADF-allied attorney Charles S. LiMandri will speak Saturday at a rally in support of protecting the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial. Other speakers include congressmen, local broadcasters, religious leaders, and veterans.

ADF submits supplementary letter brief in Mt. Soledad case on behalf of American Legion Dept. of Calif.

Winnifred Fallers Sullivan writing at The Immanent Frame: “Justices Kennedy, Alito, and Scalia argued that the cross, in the context of a war memorial, was not best described as sectarian. In the words of Justice Kennedy, ‘one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion.’ What does he mean? What is ‘more than religion’? Is the ‘more’ America? Or is the ‘more’ humanity? Is the ‘more’ necessarily secular? Is it indeed more, or is it less? . . . Over the last thirty years or so, for a complex set of reasons—including, I think, fear of scientific naturalism, the hardening of political divisions, and the stakes involved in owning pieces of the cultural landscape—universalism has fallen on hard times. Judges cannot cope any better with this than the rest of us.”

Cleveland Jewish News: “A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday that an eight-foot Christian cross on government parkland in California did not violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits government endorsement of religion. The decision comes on the heels of a Wisconsin federal judge’s ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional because it endorses prayer for its own sake, not to further a secular purpose . . . Two other cases involving crosses are currently in federal courts. One is a 29-foot cross and war memorial on Mt. Soledad in San Diego. The other involves 12-foot crosses that Utah erects on roadside memorials to fallen highway patrol troopers.”

SDNews.com: . . . Joe Infranco, a senior attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, believes the outcome for the Mount Soledad Cross case will be affected by the Supreme Court’s decision in 2005 to permit a statue of the Ten Commandments to remain on public property in Texas due to its historical significance. ‘My impression is that the panel was attempting to reconcile its old views with the Supreme Court precedent, which is now very favorable to the cross,’ Infranco said. ‘This is a panel that, based on its history, would not be friendly to our perspective. Any panel, regardless of each judge’s philosophy, is still bound by Supreme Court decisions.’ . . . ”

ADF Media Information Page

San Diego News: “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit heard the case on Dec. 9, but no decision is imminent since the three judges are waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the Mojave cross case Salazar vs. Buno’ . . . ‘My impression is that the panel was attempting to reconcile its old views with the Supreme Court precedent, which is now very favorable to the cross,’ Infranco said. ‘This is a panel that, based on its history, would not be friendly to our perspective. Any panel, regardless of each judge’s philosophy, is still bound by Supreme Court decisions.’”

OneNewsNow: “‘Really it’s a disgraceful suit, in our view,’ he laments. ‘One person’s agenda should not diminish the sacrifices made by America’s veterans and their families — and that’s what they’re attempting to do in this case.’”

ADF attorney Joe Infranco appeared on Point of View Radio with Kerby Anderson to discuss recent oral arguments at the 9th Circuit in the Mt. Soledad Cross case.

The MP3 runs over 8 minutes.

Related ADF Media Information Page

Veterans Memorials Project: ADF, Liberty Legal Institute, American Legion

SaveOurMemorials.com

Liberty Legal Institute

San Diego Union-Tribune: “Joe Infranco, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, which has sided with the government and wants to keep the cross, said after the hearing it was ‘very hard to tell’ if the judges were leaning in any direction. But he seemed encouraged by the court’s focus. ‘The congressional intent is key here,’ he said.”

WorldNetDaily: “Joe Infranco is a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group that filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the American Legion Department of California. He told WND that after 45 minutes of arguments in 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it was difficult to tell which way the three-judge panel was leaning. ‘There was not a lot of heated debate. There were not pointed questions,’ he said. ‘My view of it is that the panel was attempting to reconcile its old views with Supreme Court precedent, which is now very favorable toward the cross.’”

San Diego Union-Tribune: “‘Regardless of the makeup of the panel, they are bound by Supreme Court precedent, and that precedent is on our side,’ said Joe Infranco, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund. That group, which advocates on behalf of Christian religious beliefs in courts, was one of many organizations that filed ‘friend of the court’ briefs in the case.”

ADF Senior Counsel Joseph Infranco and ADF Legal Counsel Timothy Chandler will be available for media interviews following oral arguments in a long-running lawsuit over the Mt. Soledad Veterans’ Memorial. In March, ADF attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of The American Legion Department of California in defense of the 55-year-old Mt. Soledad cross after the American Civil Liberties Union and atheist Steve Trunk challenged its constitutionality.