Balancing Act

COURT IN

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RICHARD BRUST

HEN SHE LOOKS BACK ON IT, TULANE UNIVER

sity professor Nancy Maveety senses a wist ful quality to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s opinion in one of the two Ten Command ments cases decided this June.

“It reads like a parting shot,” says Maveety, who chronicled O’Connor’s career in a 1996 biography, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: Strat

egist on the Supreme Court. “It was philosophical and reflective. It hit on the large themes of religion in American life.”

O’Connor’s opinion in McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, 125 S. Ct. 2722, was among the 75-year-old justice’s last, is sued just four days before the announcement that she would retire from the court. As befits a valedictory, the writing sounded pensive, Maveety says, different from the justice’s usual straightforward style. An example:

“At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish Given the history of this particular display of

the Ten Commandments, the court correctly finds an establishment clause violation Thepurpose behind the counties’ display is rele

vant because it conveys an unmistakable message of endorsement to the reasonable observer.”

Richard Brust is an assistant managing editor for the ABA Journal.