Mr. President, Tear Down This Box! Supreme Court Reverses Ninth Circuit Court, Sends 75-Year-Old Mojave War Memorial Back to Court

PLANO, Texas, April 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in Salazar v. Buono in a 5-4 ruling that a lower court must correct its ruling to tear down the 75-year-old Mojave War Memorial cross, currently covered with a plywood box.  The WWI monument has been at the center of decade-long legal battle because it is in the shape of a cross and sits on public property in the middle of 1.6 million acres of desert in the Mojave National Preserve.

"It is a disgrace that this memorial to our fallen veterans has been covered in a box of plywood for ten years while the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court," said Kelly Shackelford, president/CEO of Liberty Institute, which represents as amici in the case Henry and Wanda Sandoz, the longtime memorial caretakers, and more than four million veterans through the VFW, The American Legion, Military Order of the Purple Heart, and the American Ex-Prisoners of War.   "We applaud The Supreme Court for overruling the decisions below, but this battle is not over.  This box must come off.  No war memorial with religious imagery is safe until the Court rules that these memorials, which serve to remember our fallen heroes of the military, are allowed under the Constitution."

The case, which was argued October 7, 2009, originated when a former National Park Service employee living in Oregon sued for the removal of the memorial.  The case advanced through a California court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the memorial be covered in a box, hidden from view, until a ruling was made.   Today's ruling from The Supreme Court reverses the Ninth Circuit's ruling and lower court ruling that the memorial must be torn down, and says that the lower court must readdress the issue of the land transfer, which would have put the Memorial in the hands of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).

"The VFW is grateful the Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit's decision," said Joe Davis, public affairs director of the VFW.  "As this case now goes back to the court below, this box must come down.  This and every veterans memorial should be respected for those it honors, not covered or torn down."

Liberty Institute's brief on behalf of the veterans, written with the firms of Morgan Lewis and Baker Botts, was cited numerous times in the Court's opinion and concurrences.

Similar memorials are under attack around the country, including the Mount Soledad Memorial, a 29-foot-tall Latin cross in San Diego which has been in litigation since the 1980s.  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case in December 2009, and is expected to release a ruling soon.

Liberty Institute works to uphold Constitutional and First Amendment religious and speech freedoms in the courts.  Liberty Institute recently petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for certiorari in Morgan, et al., v. Plano Independent School District, a major student free speech case.

For more information, visit www.donttearmedown.com.

SOURCE Liberty Institute