Win, Win, WIN!
There were big smiles and warm hearts all around, as the Chronicle editors wrote this editorial for today:
Austin attorney Thomas Van Orden has no delusions about the role of appearance. When the civil liberties case he has spent three years preparing reaches the U.S. Supreme Court this winter, Van Orden won't be the one making arguments. Instead, a childhood friend and respected law scholar will do it for him.
Supreme Court Justices, Van Orden recently told Chronicle reporter Polly Ross Hughes, can't help but notice the lawyer before them. An appearance by Van Orden — homeless, hobbled by mental illness, and broke enough to glean his office supplies from trash cans — might distract the court from his case.
This is about the only concession Van Orden has made to his marginal status. For three years, he has patiently argued before several courts that two tablets bearing the Ten Commandments, which stand close to the Texas Capitol, violate the First Amendment barring government establishment of religion. A former defense lawyer, Van Orden first noticed the tablets on his daily walk from his tent to the University of Texas law library near the Capitol. According to the Los Angeles Times, Van Orden one day used a tattered ball of string to measure the tablet's proximity to the Capitol. Seventy-five feet — too close, Van Orden argues now, to comply with the Bill of Rights' ban on government endorsement of any religion.
[snip]
In order for this case to reach the high court, Van Orden had to present deep and important constitutional questions. Even more difficult, he had to develop these questions while living outdoors, dining off food stamps and researching his case from a library carrel. Plagued by anxiety and depression, Van Orden had been homeless and jobless since the late 1990s; along the way, he also lost his law license over a $500 payment dispute.
He is still allowed to represent himself. Astonishingly, armed only with that right and his intact knowledge of law, Van Orden has managed to guide his case to the Supreme Court.
Whatever the outcome, the justices' ruling this spring will make two powerful statements. One will define a new boundary between church and state. The other will reiterate the law's mighty potential for any citizen with enough knowledge and nerve.
Ah yes. A homeless man who's a lawyer who's fighting to get rid of the Ten Commandments. It just doesn't get any better than that.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/18/04 09:01 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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