ACLJ to File Two Briefs at the Supreme Court

This week I have been leading a senior team of ACLJ lawyers who are preparing two reply briefs to the Supreme Court of the United States.  The cases involve the display of the Ten Commandments and a decision in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals which created a troubling precedent.  That court held that since the Cities of Duchesne and Pleasant Grove in Utah had accepted donated monuments that included the Ten Commandments, then they were under the affirmative obligation to accept monuments from a group called Summum.  Summum has proposed its "Seven Aphorisms." 

We have filed two petitions with the Supreme Court of the United States and Summum has filed its briefs in opposition.  We are now in the midst of our preparation for the reply briefs.  This is an extremely important process, as the Justices will read all of the briefs filed by all the parties in order to make a decision on whether to grant review of the cases. 

In these cases, eight states, a number of cities, and several of the leading veteran organizations in America have filed briefs on our side, asking the Supreme Court to hear the cases.  These organizations have made an important statement by filing briefs on our behalf.

As part of our ongoing educational efforts at the American Center for Law and Justice, we have our law clerksboth in our Virginia Beach campus and our offices in Washington, DCdo research projects for these two Supreme Court cases.  As you can imagine, this is an unprecedented opportunity for law students to actually work on cases being prepared for the Supreme Court of the United States.  Currently, the ACLJ has over 25 law clerks in our Virginia Beach office and 6 in our Washington, DC offices.  These students are literally participating in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work on cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

As we are preparing our reply briefs, I would encourage all of you to continue to pray for our staff and lawyers as we seek to prepare the correct response so that the cases are accepted for review by the Supreme Court.  In the days ahead, we will publish a link to the briefs, which we anticipate filing sometime next week.  In the meantime, the work of the American Center for Law and Justice and our efforts around the world continue.  Look for an upcoming report on a religious freedom situation in Turkey, as well as an update on our work in the Middle East.