Thomas Van Orden - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Thomas David Van Orden born September 1, 1944 – died November 11, 2010 was an American lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

who challenged the constitutionality

Constitutionality

Constitutionality is the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution. Acts that are not in accordance with the rules laid down in the constitution are deemed to be ultra vires.-See also:*ultra vires*Company law*Constitutional law...

of displaying the Ten Commandments

Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...

on the grounds of the Texas Capitol under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Van Orden v Gov Perry et al, 125 S. Ct. 2854 (2005).

Van Orden is lesser known for In Re Van Orden, 559 S.W.2d 805, Tex. Crim. App., (1977) in which he was punished as an attorney for contempt by the highest criminal court in Texas.

Van Orden was a native Texan born in east Texas who spent part of his boyhood in Tyler. He graduated from the University of North Texas and then earned his law degree from Southern Methodist University School of Law,.

Thomas Van Orden was a veteran who served during the Vietnam War. He was initially assigned to be an Army helicopter door gunner but reassigned to the Judge Advocate General Corps and tasked with preparing Wills for his fellow soldiers. Thomas's older brother was killed in action in the same conflict. His brother, a navy pilot, served aboard the same carrier as Sentor and Presidential contender John McCain. Like his brother, Van Orden later also became a civil pilot as well as an instructor.

After his service, Thomas Van Orden returned to Tyler to practice law and this included a tenure as attorney for the City of Tyler. Van Orden was also appointed to represent clients by the Hon. William Wayne Justice, the U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas, sitting in Tyler. Van Orden subsequently relocated to Houston Texas to focus his practice on criminal defense before eventually again moving his law practice to Austin Texas. His license to practice law was suspended in December 1999 for "disciplinary sanctions" and "default in payment of occupation tax."

Van Orden v. Perry
Van Orden v. Perry
Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, involving whether a display of the Ten Commandments on a monument given to the government at the Texas State Capitol in Austin violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.In a...

was presented before the U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

on March 2, 2005. For the final appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court Van Orden's was represented by Erwin Chemerinsky, an American lawyer, law professor, and prominent scholar in United States constitutional law and federal civil procedure. The contention was that a large granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

monument

Monument

A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...

carved

Stone carving

Stone carving is an ancient activity where pieces of rough natural stone are shaped by the controlled removal of stone. Owing to the permanence of the material, evidence can be found that even the earliest societies indulged in some form of stone work....

with the commandments, on display on the Texas State Capitol

Texas State Capitol

The Texas State Capitol is located in Austin, Texas, and is the fourth building to be the house of Texas government in Austin. It houses the chambers of the Texas Legislature and the office of the governor of Texas. It was designed originally during 1881 by architect Elijah E. Myers, and was...

grounds in Austin

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, violated the anti-establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Van Orden argued that Texas 'accepted' the monument 'for the purpose of promoting the Commandments as a personal code of conduct for youths and because the Commandments are a sectarian religious code, their promotion and endorsement by the State as a personal code contravenes the First Amendment.' He asserted that the district court's finding that the State had a secular purpose for the display is not supported by the evidence and that a reasonable viewer would perceive the display of the decalogue as a State advancement and endorsement of religion favoring the Jewish and Christian faiths. Excerpted: 351 F.3d 173 U.S., 5th Cir (2003).

In a decision reached June 27, 2005, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 against Van Orden. The opinion has several notable distinctions. It is one of the last opinions delivered by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Rehnquist wrote the plurality opinion upholding the constitutionality of a display of the Ten Commandments at the Texas state capitol in Austin:

"Our cases, Janus like, point in two directions in applying the Establishment Clause. One face looks toward the strong role played by religion and religious traditions throughout our Nation's history.... The other face looks toward the principle that governmental intervention in religious matters can itself endanger religious freedom."

This decision was joined by Justices Scalia, Thomas, Breyer, and Kennedy. And is perceived as undermining the legacy of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's contribution to American jurisprudence by the majorities rejection of the Lemon test as announced in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971). Several books have since been written about the case.

Van Orden is also considered noteworthy because he was at the time of his lawsuit and during the litigation destitute and homeless

Homelessness

Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...

, living out of a tent

Tent

A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over or attached to a frame of poles or attached to a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using guy ropes tied to stakes or tent pegs...

. The media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

thus dubbed him "The Homeless Lawyer", a label Van Orden expressed distaste for, stating, "What do you think defines me: where I slept or what I did all day?" However, when friends put him up in an apartment, he soon left to return to his tent in the woods.

In the mid-1990s, while on sabbatical from his law practice, Van Orden worked at Austin-based NuStats where he helped find solutions to transportation issues in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

while also helping

Pro bono

Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...

his underpaid co-workers with various legal problems.

External links

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly (PBS), includes video coverage
From the streets to the Supreme Court, The Houston Chronicle Oct. 17, 2004
[ U.S. Supreme Court docket for 03-1500 Van Orden v. Perry]

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