Louisiana AG wants to stop lawsuit over Ten Commandments posters in schools, says it’s ‘premature’

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill held a news conference on Monday, Aug. 5, to explain why the state is asking a federal court to throw out a lawsuit that argues Louisiana posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms is unconstitutional.

Murrill said the state plans to file a brief asking that the suit be dismissed because “the lawsuit is premature and the plaintiffs cannot prove that they have any actual injury.” She also pointed to ways the state thinks the religious text can be posted appropriately.

Earlier this year, the Louisiana Legislature approved a new law requiring all classrooms to hang a poster of the Ten Commandments in large, legible print. Gov. Jeff Landry signed it on June 19.

“I believe the legislature was only following the will of the people of the state,” Landry said Monday at the news conference.

A lawsuit filed in the Middle District of Louisiana argues that the state can’t display the posters without violating constitutional provisions against the separation of church and state, infringing on students’ rights.

The state and the plaintiffs have agreed to pause putting the posters in classrooms until at least Nov. 15, pending court hearings.

Murrill said that the law has not been blocked or paused and the “compliance date for the law is January 2025 and that has not changed.”

She pointed to posters hung around the room in the Louisiana Department of Justice on North 3rd Street, Baton Rouge, where the conference was held.

The attorney general of Louisiana showed an example of the legal size of the poster. She said that “posters will be donated if they are produced” and the ones displayed show ways to display the Ten Commandments without violating anyone’s rights.

“Each one of these posters illustrates something that we believe represents a constitutional application of the law,” she Murrill.

“We believe that there are numerous ways that this law can be applied constitutionally and that create really, really powerful teaching moments for students in our schools,” said Murrill.

Landry talked about how eight years ago, a painting with Moses in it was put in the building where the news conference was held. It was titled “Justice for All.”

At the Republican National Convention earlier this summer, Landry said if the Ten Commandments had been in Thomas Matthew Crooks’ classroom, it might have kept him from shooting at former President Donald Trump.

“Because this lawsuit is all based on hypothetical facts, the court can’t decide the case yet, so we’ve asked the court to dismiss the case on that basis in our brief,” said Murrill.