John Doe, ACLU Lose Ten Commandments Case

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has lost its six-year campaign to tear down a Ten Commandments monument at the Dixie County, Florida courthouse.  

They’ve even lost their usual extortion money for harassing a community.

The case fell apart after the plaintiff, an anonymous North Carolina man who had planned to come to Dixie County to live in his RV, decided not to move there after all.

Senior U.S. District Judge Maurice M. Paul dismissed the case without prejudice on Feb. 13, because the plaintiff lacked standing. The ACLU could re-file if an actual resident is willing to buck the strong tide of sentiment in the county.  

For now, Mr. “‘Heel on Wheels” [not his actual nickname] has sunk the ship.

In February 2007, the ACLU filed a lawsuit naming “John Doe” as the plaintiff.  Judge Paul ruled in 2011 that the monument was an establishment of religion, and awarded $130,000 in legal fees to the ACLU, which had tried to finger the taxpayers for $160,000.  He then stayed his order, and was reversed by the 11^th Circuit. When the plaintiff pulled out, it blew up the whole thing, including the ACLU’s award of legal fees.

Harry Mihet, an attorney at Liberty Counsel, which represented Dixie County, found the outcome pleasing:  “We went from an order that ‘the monument goes and you have to pay $130,000 to the ACLU,’ to ‘the monument stays, and the ACLU has to pay a total of $3, 600,’” Mr. Mihet told me.

For the 75-year-old “John Doe,” the dismissal’s bright spot is that he won’t have to leave North Carolina’s barbecue country for less certain barbecue conditions in Florida.  He made the decision not to move upon learning that his identity would be revealed if the case proceeded. The initial ruling had triggered a pro-monument rally of 1,500 in nearby Cross City, whose population is 1,700, according to Ocala.com. So far, the ACLU has not insisted that Cross City change its name.

Mr. “Doe” apparently figured, according to the ACLU, that his new neighbors would welcome him not with their own version of home-cooked barbecue but with something a little stronger. No word on whether the good citizens of Dixie County will countersue for defamation, claiming that “John Doe” and the ACLU have slyly caricatured them as violent half wits right out of the movie “Deliverance.”

“The ACLU got caught with its hands in the constitutional cookie jar,” Mr. Mihet said in a press release. “In getting kicked out of court, the ACLU has learned that it cannot impose its San Francisco values upon a small town in Florida, using a phantom member from North Carolina.”

Liberty Counsel argued that not only did the plaintiff lack standing but that “the case presents a Free Speech, not an Establishment Clause, issue. The Open Forum policy allows private citizens to erect private historical displays at their own expense.”

The five-foot-tall 12,000-pound monument was erected at the top of the courthouse steps in 2006 after Joe Anderson Jr., chairman and founder of Lake City-based road builder Anderson Columbia, purchased it for $20,000. 

Joe Anderson is another story. He’s not only funded several other Ten Commandments monuments in Florida, but also a “revival” mobile display.  It’s parked somewhere until legal threats arise, and then it takes off down the road. “He’s having some fun with the ACLU,” Mr. Mihet said. 

“We’re just getting started,” Mr. Anderson, 73, said on Friday, noting that he had several requests from other counties to erect Ten Commandment monuments. “We got a bunch of them up right now, already built, ready to go.” 
--Robert Knight in The Washington Times  Feb. 25, 2013 
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