Court rules NY town's prayer violated Constitution
Legal News Feed
An upstate New York town violated the constitutional ban against favoring one religion over another by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity, a federal court of appeals ruled Thursday.
In what it said was its first case testing the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled the town of Greece, a suburb of Rochester, should have made a greater effort to invite people from other faiths to open monthly meetings. The town's lawyer says it will appeal.
From 1999 through 2007, and again from January 2009 through June 2010, every meeting was opened with a Christian-oriented invocation. In 2008, after residents Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens complained, four of 12 meetings were opened by non-Christians, including a Jewish layman, a Wiccan priestess and the chairman of the local Baha'i congregation.
Galloway and Stephens sued and, in 2010, a lower court ruled there was no evidence the town had intentionally excluded other faiths.
A town employee each month selected clerics or lay people by using a local published guide of churches. The guide did not include non-Christian denominations, however. The court found that religious institutions in the town of just under 100,000 people are primarily Christian, and even Galloway and Stephens testified they knew of no non-Christian places of worship there.
Related listings
-
US court looks at possible Edwards lawyer conflict
Legal News Feed 03/15/2012A federal judge planned to hear Thursday whether former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards would create problems for his upcoming trial by hiring lawyers who represented his mistress in a lawsuit over the couple's alleged sex tape. The hearing schedule...
-
SF sheriff in political thicket after guilty plea
Legal News Feed 03/13/2012The San Francisco sheriff has a political thicket to get through now that he's putting his legal woes behind him with a plea bargain in a domestic violence case that made international headlines. Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi pleaded guilty Monday to a misd...
-
Foreign donations are a risk in super PAC setting
Legal News Feed 02/10/2012Money pouring into the presidential election from super political action committees and nonprofit campaign groups appears so far to be strictly American in origin, donated by U.S. companies, unions and millionaires. But it's easier than ever to conce...
New Rochelle, New York Personal Injury Lawyers
If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident, contact Kommer, Bave & Ollman, LLP, in New Rochelle, New York, immediately. We can answer all your questions and work with you to determine if you have the grounds for a personal injury lawsuit. The attorneys at our firm are determined to resolve even the most difficult of cases. We will work closely with you to determine the best course of action to get your claim or case resolved in the most efficient way possible. We will fight for your right to compensation! No one should have to suffer a financial burden from the result of another person’s carelessness. The attorneys at Kommer, Bave & Ollman, LLP will aggressively fight to ensure that justice is served on your behalf.