'Philosophy' Poster Containing Ten Commandments Gets Judge Back In Spotlight

January 27, 2010

Author: Mary Beth Lane

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/01/27/poster-with-10-commandments-puts-judge-back-in-spotlight.html?sid=101

A second constitutional challenge to an Ohio judge's display of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom is making its way through the court system.

At issue is whether a new, self-designed and framed poster put up by Richland County Common Pleas Judge James DeWeese in his Mansfield courtroom is constitutional. He says it is. Advocates for church-state separation say it isn't.

The judge hung the poster in 2006. That was after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 let stand previous lower-court rulings that his first poster, which he hung in 2000, violated the constitutional separation between church and state.