The Pledge of Allegi…

The Pledge of Allegiance was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge today.

Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was ruled unconstitutional Wednesday by a federal judge who granted legal standing to two families represented by an atheist who lost his previous battle before the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge’s reference to one nation “under God” violates school children’s right to be “free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.”

I’m wondering what federal law enumerates that particular right. Google can’t seem to find anything. I’m not saying unequivocally that children ought to be required to do that. I just would like to know the law this judge is citing.

Hold not thy breath.

Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

You mean the most overturned court in the country has suddenly become unassailable? Here’s what one web page notes:

It is often called “the most overturned appeals court in the United States”, but the court has a higher caseload than most other circuit courts. From 1992 to 2003, the lowest percentage of overturned appeals by the ninth circuit was 68 percent. The highest was 95 percent. The average percentage of Ninth Circuit Court decisions overturned by the Supreme Court during this time was 73.5 percent as compared to an average of 61 percent by the all the other circuit courts of appeal combined.

(By the way, a higher caseload, with a larger number of decisions, should tend to lower this percentage. The more samples, the more those samples tend to congregate around the average. Thus the higher percentage speaks more to their out-of-mainstream judicial views rather than to their workload. I’m no stats expert, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.)

This is a judicial cop-out. “Golly gee, I can’t overturn anything by the 9th Circuit!” Hogwash. Overturning the 9th Circuit has become the rule rather than the exception. And if he simply can never break their precedent, Judge Karlton needs to be removed. He’s just a walking, talking rubber stamp.

I’ve talked about the “under God” thing here, and the Supreme Court’s view on it here, and I don’t think this is going to get ultimately set in stone. For now, this is a case of a judge unwilling to take on a hot-button topic, and instead saying (doing my best Flip Wilson impersonation), “The 9th Circuit made me do it!”

UPDATE: My bad, and I apologize. Judge Karlton is not above the 9th Circuit in the appeals process; he’s below it, and thus needs to abide by the precedent set by the 9th Circuit until such time as it’s overruled by the Supreme Court. According to this updated news item, the 9th Circuit Court is the next stop for this case:

The Becket Fund, a religious rights group that is a party to the case, said it would immediately appeal the case to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the court does not change its precedent, the group would go to the Supreme Court.

I do believe, however, that the 9th Circuit will continue it’s stellar performance of being overturned on appeal in this decision as well. Again, my apologies to the readers and to Judge Karlton.

UPDATE PART DEUX: Rick at Stones Cry Out noted (see the comments) that, according to “The Smart Guys” (a couple of regular lawyer guests to the Hugh Hewitt show, Judge Karlton wasn’t bound by the 9th Circuit’s precedent because the Supreme Court annulled it (they ruled that Newdow had no standing in the case). Thus the precedent cited by Karlton, legally, doesn’t exist. Well, now I’m inclined to take back my apology, but I won’t. Obviously, my own knowledge of the situation isn’t good enough to pass an informed judgement on it. The “Smart Guys”, however, are another story.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out. Comments welcome.)

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