Rokita Seeks Ruling on Statehouse Ten Commandments

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita's office has asked a federal judge to rule that the state may place a monument displaying the Ten Commandments, the Bill of Rights and the Preamble to the Indiana Constitution on the Statehouse lawn.

Rokita announced the filing on Nov. 9 and described it as a motion for summary judgment his office "recently filed." The court's public docket shows the state's cross-motion for summary judgment and supporting brief were filed Oct. 19 in Indiana Civil Liberties Union v. Mike Braun, No. 1:00-cv-00811-SEB-MKK, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Gov. Mike Braun is the defendant in his official capacity. The plaintiffs are the ACLU of Indiana, James A. Tanford, the Rev. Kevin Armstrong and Patrice Muumba Abduallah. U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker is presiding.

The state's filing also opposes a summary judgment motion the plaintiffs filed Sept. 25, according to the docket.

"The Ten Commandments, the Bill of Rights, and our state Constitution's Preamble are foundational to the laws and liberties Hoosiers live under every day, and protecting those principles is exactly what my office works to do," Rokita said in the Nov. 9 release. He also said his office would "continue working to ensure a small group of radical activists, backed by the ACLU, doesn't prevent us from doing so."

Joseph Davis, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and an attorney for the state, said in the same release that "states are free to acknowledge their full history and culture, including the parts that happen to be religious."

The dispute dates to 2000. A Ten Commandments monument donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles stood on the Statehouse lawn from 1958 until it was vandalized in 1991, according to court filings. Then-Gov. Frank O'Bannon planned to install a replacement made by the Indiana Limestone Institute. The Indiana Civil Liberties Union, now the ACLU of Indiana, sued, and the court blocked the installation on July 28, 2000. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in 2001, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2002. Final judgment and a permanent injunction followed on April 24, 2002. The monument is about seven feet tall and weighs about 11,500 pounds, according to the plaintiffs' brief, and it has stood outside a church in Bedford since.

The state argues that the original ruling rested on the U.S. Supreme Court's 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman test, which the high court has since set aside, and that monuments must now be judged by the nation's history and traditions. Rokita's release cited a Supreme Court decision upholding a Ten Commandments display at the Texas Capitol.

Braun asked the court in December 2025 to lift the 2002 injunction. On May 28, Barker granted that request and reinstated the case.

"It is indisputable here that Establishment Clause jurisprudence has changed significantly since 2002, when the final judgment was first entered in this case," Barker wrote.

Barker also wrote that deciding whether the monument would be constitutional "requires a more fulsome record than is currently before us," and she stayed the lifting of the injunction for 45 days so the plaintiffs could decide whether to file an amended complaint. The court accepted the plaintiffs' amended complaint on Aug. 13.

The plaintiffs argue the outcome should not change. "Even though a new test of constitutionality must be applied to the proposed Ten Commandments monument, the result is the same," their Sept. 25 brief says. "Erecting the proposed monument on the grounds of the Statehouse lawn would violate the First Amendment."

Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, said in June that "when the State puts that text on the lawn of the Statehouse, it is no longer private expression." As of Thursday morning, the ACLU of Indiana's press release page showed no statement responding to Rokita's Nov. 9 announcement.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based group, issued a statement Nov. 11 opposing the effort. "The First Commandment directly contradicts our First Amendment," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, the group's co-president.

Under a July 20 scheduling order from Magistrate Judge M. Kendra Klump, the plaintiffs' combined reply was due Nov. 9, and the state's final reply in support of its cross-motion is due Nov. 23. The docket lists a telephonic status conference before Klump on Feb. 11, 2027, at 11:30 a.m. ET. The docket does not list a hearing date on the summary judgment motions.