Our constitutional landscape: Inflatable rat has more free speech rights than a religion

No doubt, many of my atheist readers will think that this is the way things should be, but I think this is absurd. Let's dive in, shall we?

Earlier this month, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled a ten-foot blow-up rat is a form of free expression entitled to constitutional protection. The rat had been and displayed at a 2005 labor event in Lawrence Township until police enforced a law that bans banners, streamers and inflatable signs, except those announcing grand openings.

Justice John Wallace Jr. wrote for the court: "The township's elimination of an entire medium of expression without a readily available alternative renders the ordinance overbroad." Justice Wallace continued by arguing, "Restrict free speech? Fugetaboutit! No disrespect."

Also in the realm of free speech, yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Pleasant Grove City v. Summum. The Court ruled a city government in Utah has the right to refuse the donation of a monument from a religious sect called Summum for display in a public park. However, that same public park has displayed a monument with the Ten Commandments for decades.

Read in context with Van Orden v. Perry, which upheld the display of the Ten Commandments in a public space, this ruling that creates a glaring loophole in our Constitution’s First Amendment, a loophole that manages to damage both the freedom of religion and the separation of church and state at the same time. By refusing to give Summum the same recognition as Christianity and Judaism, the Supreme Court has effectively created a hierarchy of religions with Summum near the bottom.

Justice Alito’s majority opinion argues that Summum followers have the right to hand out leaflets in the city park because that is private speech, but the erection of a permanent monument is government speech. If Justice Alito is correct, then the Ten Commandments monument in that same park has received government endorsement.

In 2005, the Supreme Court said that a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol did not violate the Establishment Clause because the Ten Commandments “have an undeniable historical meaning” in addition to its “religious significance.”

That finding is little help to Summum, which was founded in 1975. Just because one religion is too young to have history on its side does not mean that it ought to be treated differently by its government. To do otherwise uses a religion’s age as a proxy for its legitimacy for inclusion in the fabric of American society.

This stunning conclusion by the Court leaves me disturbed both as a believer in the First Amendment, but also as a believer in God. If the Roman government had adopted similar logic in the second century A.D., my faith tradition, Christianity, might never have flourished. Today’s Summum might be tomorrow’s Christianity, and the government has no business meddling in this free and open marketplace of religious ideas.

This case may appear to be a limited-scope Free Speech case, but it smells like a major Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause problem. Look at this passage from Justice Souter's concurrance:

"The government could well argue, as a development of government speech doctrine, that when it expresses its own views, it is free of the Establishment Clause’s stricture against discriminating among religious sects or groups. Under this view of the relationship between the two doctrines, it would be easy for agovernment to favor some private religious speakers over others by its choice of monuments to accept. Whether that view turns out to be sound is more than I can say at this point."

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot? Justice Souter is unwilling to say definitevly that the Establishment Clause means...something. This is a truly troubling statement. It is as if Justice Thomas has hacked into Souter's computer and published a fradulent opinion in Souter's name. Because if Souter endorses that view, his First Amendment views are identical to Thomas'. GULP!

Finally, you want some irony? Summum's lawyers made Jay Sekulow-style arguments concerning public forum jurisprudence. Guess who represented the Utah city before the Court? Jay Sekulow. See he believes in the marketplace of ideas, but only when it benefits conservative Christians or messianic Jews. The rest of our nations religions can go f*&^ off.

Worst Motion Ever!

Many thanks to Rodney Chedister for passing this bizarre case along to me:

The case Washington v. Alaimo, 943 F. Supp 1395 (1996) was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. It was disposed of on the “merits” (if you can call them that) based on orders which limit pro se plaintiff’s access to the courts to “protect their jurisdiction from conduct which impairs their ability to carry out Article III functions.” (In re Martin-Trigona) The case (as well as the many other cases filed in federal district court by Matthew Washington) undoubtedly produced some of the most hilarious motions and ridiculous circumstances in the modern history of the courts – I say ridiculous because this particular pro se litigant took especial care to file each and every motion properly with the court, making it part of the record AND requiring a judge or magistrate to deal with each motion in turn.

In 1976, Matthew Washington was convicted of killing a police officer in hot pursuit. Washington had in fact been acquitted of another murder charge by reason of insanity. For the murder of the police officer, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, plus 20 years for aggravated assault on two other officers, sentences to run consecutively. However, Mr. Washington continued to get his veteran’s benefits check. With this money, he spent his time filing a multitude of frivolous lawsuits in federal district court against a variety of parties. As the court noted, “It has come to the attention of this court that Plaintiff’s litigation practice is largely, if not entirely, underwritten by the Federal treasury.”

In the case, Washington v. Bobby Whitworth, Washington attempted through something he called an “Extraordinary Motion to Amend” to add the U.S. Secret Service as a party. Then he began filing (all done properly) a variety of motions, including his “Motion to Behoove an Inquisition,” “Motion for Judex Delegatus,” “Motion for the Restoration of Sanity” (can courts do that? Because I might file), “Motion for Deinsitutionalization,” and a “Motion for Publicity.”

In Washinton v. Morris, Mr. Washington sued the judge who presided over his murder trial. In this one case alone, he filed a total of fifty-four pleadings, many to add parties to the suit, including one to add Ted Turner because he had failed in his duty to the freedom of the press. In various cases, Washington filed a plethora of motions ranging from the mundane to the . . . sublime? Well, at least for the purposes of Supreme Dicta. Here are a few (Note: None of these are the worst motion ever. I’m making you wait for that one):

• Motion for Cesset pro Cessus
• Motion for Nunc pro Tunc
• Motion to Impeach Judge Alaimo
• Motion to Renounce Citizenship
• Motion for Psychoanalysis (this one might actually have made some sense, except he wasn't asking for his own analysis, but of the judge he was suing)
• Motion to Exhume the Body of Alex Hodgson
• Motion for Catered Food Services
• Motion for a Skin Change Operation (in which he asked for a sex change operation)
  

But, in the case Matthew Washington v. A.A. Alaimo, (a suit brought against each and every judge in the Southern District), Washington outdid himself. In the category of worst motion ever, the winner is . . .

Motion to Kiss My Ass!!!

The court noted that Washington's Motion to Kiss My Ass was an expression of frustration leveled at Magistrate Judge Smith for refusing to allow him to add as parties to the case one Judge Karpf and one Senator Sam Nunn. The court also noted that the case had been pending for less than a year before the court dismissed with prejudice and already Washington had filed no less than three interlocutory appeals, and had filed three more interlocutory appeals in another case which was less than three months old!!

In the end, as a direct result of Washington filing his Motion to Kiss My Ass, the district court imposed restrictions on Washington that kept him from pro se litigation for his abuse of the judiciary (their words, not mine), without forestalling his participation in any legitimate claim for adjudication. The court concluded "The time has come to take the rattle from the baby and impose some form and discipline upon Plaintiff’s law practice within this and other federal courts."

Motion was denied. With the thanks of the court.

Worst brief ever!

Another fantastic story out of Wisconsin, but unfortunately not from Sheboygan (sorry Seth).

A jazz musician who filed a legal brief in a child custody dispute with rap lyrics won his appeal and will get out of paying nearly $4,000 in fees.

Gregory Royal, a trombone player, represented himself and spent three days writing his legal brief in rap form. Here's a selection of lyrics (using that term loosely):

• "Regarding frivolous filings, one thing is clear. Notice to show cause and proper service before you appear."
• "And if Industrial vs. Marquardt is any measure, it's the frivolous allegations, not the venue of your endeavor."
• "A domestic relations exception, I was supposed to know. Appellee would know too, so why did he spend so much doe?"
• "Appellee dissed 814.04 for his 3 grand justification. But he forgets that 977.08 puts the brakes on his compensation."

Good Lord, where do I begin? You spent three days working on that? Stick to playing the damn trombone.

Even worse, you are just encouraging more pro se litigants. Our justice system can barely keep up with this guy. We don't need any more.

Finally, I have to take issue with the lead sentence in the AP story, which reads: "Justice might be blind, but apparently it has good rhythm." No freackin' way. Paul Simon has good rhythm. Mr. Royal's rhythm is more like this:

And now for something completely different

This post is mostly for Mary...mostly.

Here's your newspaper headline 'o the day: Sign hacker broadcasts zombie warnings.

Someone reprogrammed two city construction road signs near the University of Texas early Monday morning in an attempt to warn Austin of an imminent zombie attack.

Messages that typically alert Lamar Boulevard drivers to a detour for Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard splashed several warnings like “Caution! Zombies Ahead!” and “Nazi Zombies! Run!!!”

As he drove south on Lamar, traffic controller Bruce Jones saw the first sign flash the Nazi zombies message at 6 a.m. and wheeled his truck around for another look. Then he said he noticed that the second sign, directed at northbound drivers, had also been tampered with.

Now you understand why I can't wait to start grad school in Austin this summer! A most grateful hat-tip to the good folks over at QuizLaw.