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Davis v. Shade
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Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Description:  A lawsuit sought to uproot a Ten Commandments monument on the Allegany
County courthouse grounds that is nearly identical to one the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2005. A
resident of a neighboring county who owns property in Allegany County filed the lawsuit to have the
monument removed because he claimed “he is offended” by it.

Ten Commandments monument in Maryland county will
stay
ADF, Jones Day attorneys represented Allegany County in defense of monument identical to one
US Supreme Court upheld in 2005
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
BALTIMORE – A Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the
Allegany County courthouse that is nearly identical to one the U.S. Supreme
Court upheld in 2005 will stay in place after the offended person who sued to
uproot it dropped his lawsuit Tuesday.
Alliance Defending Freedom and Jones Day attorneys represent the Allegany County commissioners
and in June had filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, but Jeffrey Davis, who resides in a
neighboring county but owns property in Allegany County, decided to drop his suit without
specifying his reason for doing so.
“The emotional response of an offended passerby doesn’t automatically amount to a violation of the
Establishment Clause,” said ADF Senior Counsel Brett Harvey. “Mr. Davis was right to end his quest
to uproot this monument, which is virtually identical to a monument in Texas that the U.S. Supreme
Court already upheld. Because the county’s monument would survive constitutional scrutiny, we are
pleased that it will be able to stay.”
In 1957, the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the monument, which stands not far from a
monument to George Washington. In its 2005 decision in Van Orden v. Perry, the high court
upheld the constitutionality of a nearly identical monument, also donated by FOE, on the grounds of
the Texas Capitol complex. The court ruled that the monument did not violate the Establishment
Clause.

 In its 2014 ruling in the ADF case Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Supreme Court questioned the
legitimacy of “offended observer” claims, saying that adults “often encounter speech they find
disagreeable; and an Establishment Clause violation is not made out any time a person experiences
a sense of affront from the expression of contrary religious views….”
Jones Day attorneys Noel Francisco, James Uthmeier, and Kaytlin Roholt, three of more than 3,000
private attorneys allied with ADF, are co-counsel on behalf of the county commissioners in the case,
Davis v. Shade, which the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland has agreed to dismiss.
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance­building, non­profit legal organization
that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.
 
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Additional resources: Davis v. Shade
Scroll down to view additional resources pertaining to this case and its surrounding issue.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Previous news releases:
2016-06-27: Maryland county asks court to dismiss flawed lawsuit against Ten Commandments
monument

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