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A federal appeals court on Monday shot down a request to hear a case from the Utah Highway Patrol Association, which wants to reverse a ruling that banned the organization from putting its logo on crosses to honor troopers killed in the line of duty.
In a 5-4 ruling, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver denied the appeal to hear the case. The Utah Highway Patrol Association had wanted the court to reverse an earlier ruling that the crosses are unconstitutional.
But dissenting judges argued that not hearing the case may send a message that federal courts are "increasingly hostile to religious symbols in the public sphere."
The dissenting judges wrote that the court erred in presuming religious symbols on public property are unconstitutional. They also said the court did not acknowledge the crosses' physical appearance or consider their context, which led to the assumption that "UHP is a sort of 'Christian police' that favors Christians over non-Christians a conclusion that has no support in facts," the judges wrote.
Dissenting judges also disagreed with the court's earlier decision that crosses endorse a certain religion.
"Contrary to the court's decision, the defendants did not bear the impossible burden of proving that Latin crosses are secular symbols. Rather, they needed to show only that the memorial crosses at issue conveyed a message of memorialization, not endorsement," the judges wrote.
Judges who denied the request to rehear the case said the court made the right decision in ruling the crosses unconstitutional.
The case began in 2005 when Texas-based American Atheists Inc. and three of its Utah members sued the state for allowing the association to incorporate the UHP logo on the 12-foot-high crosses and place some of them on public property.
Fourteen crosses sit alongside state highways or on the lawn outside a UHP office to memorialize troopers who died in the line of duty. They were designed by Lt. Lee Perry, a member of the nonprofit Utah Highway Patrol Association, and Robert Kirby, a columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune and a former police officer.
The trooper's name, rank and badge number are printed on a 6-foot crossbar, and a large depiction of the UHP's beehive symbol hangs below the spot where the two bars meet. The first cross was erected in 1998 on private property and 13 others were added later, most of them on public property. The memorials are privately funded and owned by the UHPA, while the state owns the public land on which some of them sit.
Where the crosses are and whom they honor
William J. Antoniewicz, died 1974, cross is near rest stop in Echo Canyon on Interstate 80
Joseph S. Brumett III, 1992, and Robert B. Hutchings, 1976, UHP field office in Murray
Daniel W. Harris, 1982, Parleys Canyon on I-80, milepost 132
Randy K. Ingram, 1994, Interstate 15 near Nephi, milepost 207
Ray L. Pierson, 1978, and Armond A. Luke, 1959, intersection of Highway 89 and State Road 20, Garfield County
Dennis L. Lund, 1993, rest stop on Interstate 70, 8 miles west of State Road 6 junction
George D. Rees, 1960, and Thomas S. Rettberg, 2000, I-15 rest stop in Farmington, milepost 327
Doyle R. Thorne, 1994, quarter-mile east of Currant Creek Junction on Highway 40, Duchesne County
George E. Van Wagenen, 1931, and John R. Winn, 1971, Main Street in Lehi next to railroad museum
Charles Warren, I-15 in Springville, milepost 262