The U.S. Supreme Court may decide as early as this week if it will hear a case related to a lawsuit involving the former Bible in the Schools program in Mercer County schools. Patrick Elliott, an attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) in Wisconsin, said last week the court may or may not agree to consider an appeal of a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond decision last year. That decision reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit that a local resident, Elizabeth Deal, had no “standing” in the lawsuit originally filed by FFRF to end the Bible in the Schools program that had been a part of the Mercer County school system for 75 years. Following the lawsuit filed by the FFRF along with Deal, the classes were suspended by the school district. However, the federal court then dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds since the classes ended. The motion to dismiss, filed by Mercer County schools’ attorneys with First Liberty Institute of Plano, Texas, and the law firm of O’Melvey & Myers LLP of Washington, D.C., said that Deal and her daughter “Jessica Roe” lack standing because they “never allege that Deal […]
