Supreme Court not reopening roadside crosses case

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced Oct. 31 that it will not reopen a case in which a lower court ruled that highway crosses memorializing Utah state troopers are unconstitutional.

Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, which filed the suit in 2005, said he hopes the court’s announcement will bring the case to an end, and lead to an alternative way of honoring troopers who died in the line of duty.

“Erecting divisive religious icons that violate the very Constitution the fallen troopers had sworn to uphold is not the way to honor those troopers who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the citizens of their state,” he said.

The Utah Highway Patrol Association had erected 12-foot white crosses to honor fallen officers since 1998. The atheist group lost its first legal challenge, but the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2010 that the memorials “have the impermissible effect of conveying to the reasonable observer the message that the state prefers or otherwise endorses a certain religion.”