Squeezing Lemon

National | TEN COMMANDMENTS: A three-decades-old high court ruling—Lemon vs. Kurtzman—used to guide lower courts on permissible religious expression in the public square is in "total disarray," critics say. And a host of unresolved Ten Commandments cases might provoke a Supreme shift | Bob Jones

On Monday, Sept. 29, the nine justices of the Supreme Court sat down to finish up their summer reading. But the so-called "summer list" is hardly a page-turner. It's a compendium of appeals filed over the summer recess—thousands of aggrieved litigants begging the nation's highest court for one final hearing.

If that makes for dry reading overall, at least one of the cases on the list boasts all the drama of a John Grisham bestseller. Roy Moore, the Alabama chief justice stripped of his robes after a tense standoff over the Ten Commandments, is now asking the Supreme Court for a hearing.

The ramifications go far beyond Mr. Moore's future on the bench, according to his attorney, Steve Melcher. "The bottom line is this: In this country, the federal courts have taken over. They're violating the constitution and the power given to them as the weakest branch of government. We're trying to hit this head-on.