Wynne v. Town of Great Falls, South Carolina
| Decision Date | 22 July 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-2069.,03-2069. |
| Citation | 376 F.3d 292 |
| Parties | Darla Kaye WYNNE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. TOWN OF GREAT FALLS, SOUTH CAROLINA, an incorporated town of the State of South Carolina, County of Chester; Henry Clayton Starnes, Mayor; John Broom, Councilman; Henry Stevenson, Councilman; Barbara Hilton, Councilwoman; Raymond H. Baker, Councilman, Defendants-Appellants, and Joe V. Pendergrass, Councilman, Defendant. State of South Carolina, Amicus Supporting Appellant, The American Jewish Congress; Americans United For Separation Of Church And State, Amici Supporting Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, Cameron McGowan Currie, J.
ARGUED: Andrew Frederick Lindemann, Davidson, Morrison & Lindemann, P.A., Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellants.
Herbert E. Buhl, III, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
ON BRIEF: Brian M. Gibbons, Hamilton, Delleney & Gibbons, P.A., Chester, South Carolina, for Appellants. Henry Dargan McMaster, Attorney General, John W. McIntosh, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Robert D. Cook Assistant Deputy Attorney General, C. Havird Jones, Jr., Senior Assistant Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Amicus Curiae State of South Carolina. Ayesha N. Khan, Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church And State, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Marc D. Stern, American Jewish Congress, New York, New York, for Amicus Curiae The American Jewish Congress.
Before MOTZ and KING, Circuit Judges, and David R. HANSEN, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge MOTZ wrote the opinion, in which Judge KING and Senior Judge HANSEN joined.
Darla Kaye Wynne brought this suit to prohibit the Town Council of Great Falls, South Carolina from engaging in prayers that specifically invoke Jesus Christ during monthly council meetings. Following a bench trial, the district court entered judgment for Wynne, ruling that the "practice of members of Town Council invoking name(s) specifically associated with the Christian faith at Town Council meetings violate[d] the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution." For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
After consideration of all of the evidence, including the testimony of Darla Wynne and the Mayor of Great Falls, Henry Clayton Starnes, the district court made numerous findings of fact. It is upon these findings and the trial evidence that we base the account set forth below.1
First, the court found that "Town Council meetings always open with prayer," that the Mayor and all Council Members are Christian, and that Council Member John Broom "often" leads the prayer. The court further found that this prayer "frequently refers to Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christ or Savior in the opening or closing portion" of the prayer.
The Mayor agreed that a typical prayer opening a council meeting states:
Our Heavenly Father we are here tonight to discuss town business. We ask that you would clear up our minds and our hearts from animosity that we might face these issues and address them with an open mind tonight. We pray that all decisions made tonight would be most beneficial for the town and the citizens.
In Christ's name we pray.
Amen (in unison).
(emphasis added). During the prayers, the court found that "citizens attending the meetings customarily stand and bow their heads." The record also contains uncontroverted evidence that residents of the Town participated in the prayers by saying "amen" at the end.
Wynne, a citizen and resident of Great Falls and a follower of the Wiccan faith (an earth-based religion reconstructed from ancient Pagan beliefs), has regularly attended Council meetings since 1999. At trial, the Town Council conceded that Wynne "had a legitimate purpose for attending" these meetings "unrelated to her religion."
The district court found that initially Wynne "stood and bowed her head during the prayer" along with her neighbors. Wynne testified she did so because she felt "on the spot" and "wanted to show respect." For the next five consecutive Council meetings, she continued to stand and bow her head during the prayer. But, as the "references to Savior, Christ, Jesus, or Jesus Christ in the prayers continued," Wynne ultimately stopped. She explained that there were "a lot of `amens,'" that "it was a very church environment," and that she became "most uncomfortable"; she believed a prayer "that mentions Jesus Christ [wa]s a promotion of the Christian religion," in which she did not believe.
Finally, at a Council meeting in late 2000, Wynne objected to the Town Council's practice of referring to "Jesus," "Christ," or "Jesus Christ" in its prayers. As an alternative, she "proposed that the prayer's references be limited to `God'" or, instead, "that members of different religions be invited to give prayers." The district court found that Mayor Starnes responded at the meeting "to the effect that: `This is the way we've always done things and we're not going to change.'"
Prior to the next Council meeting in February 2001, Council Member Barbara Hilton posted a message on the Town's website addressing Wynne's "request of alternative prayer," stating that she felt "it was imperative that we act [ ] quickly and decisively to Ms. Wynne's request" at the next meeting, and urging the Town's citizens to "call your council members and mayor with your opinions on this." Subsequently, several Christian ministers drafted letter resolutions on behalf of their members expressing support for continuance of a "Christian" prayer at Council meetings and "opposition to allowing an alternative prayer to a professed `witch,'" and numerous citizens signed a petition urging the Council to "not stop praying to our God in heaven!" At the February meeting, the church ministers and members presented the letters and petitions to the Town Council. Many church members and ministers attended that meeting — the record indicates that about 100 citizens were in attendance, as opposed to the usual "five or six," — and "hallelujahs," as well as "amens," were heard from the citizens following Broom's delivery of the Christian prayer. Wynne again asked for an "alternative" nonsectarian prayer, and the Town Council again refused her request, announcing that it would adhere to its customary prayer.
Wynne continued to attend Town Council meetings but, she testified, "it began to get hard." When she refused to stand during the Christian invocation, she heard a voice, which she believed was Councilman Broom's, state, "Well, I guess some people aren't going to participate." Her fellow citizens then told Wynne she "wasn't wanted," and that she "should leave town"; they accused her of being a "Satanist," and threatened that she "could possibly be burned out." Wynne felt "very, very uncomfortable" and "a little scar[ed]."
Moreover, the district court found that Wynne's "efforts to participate in Town Council's meetings as a member of the public [were] adversely affected by her refusal to accept the Christian prayer tradition." At one Council meeting, the Council would not permit Wynne to participate after arriving a few minutes late to avoid the prayer, even though "she had signed up to speak at the meeting, and was listed on the agenda." More generally, Wynne testified that the Council limited her allotted speaking time, "ostracized" her, and "treated [her] differently" than other members of the community. She explained that she did not believe the Mayor took her seriously, and that he attempted to intimidate her.
On August 20, 2001, Wynne filed this action, naming the Town, the Mayor, and the council members (collectively hereinafter, "the Town Council" or "the Council"), as defendants. The complaint alleged that the Town Council's consistent practice of including a "Christian prayer ritual" in Town Council meetings violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Wynne sought an injunction ordering the Council to "cease and desist forthwith from holding any Christian prayers." She explained at trial that she did not want the Town Council "punished or anything else like that." She just asked "the court to decide that a generic deity such as `God' ... without a specific reference to a deity that is associated with one religion be invoked at these prayers so that all of my community could feel welcome there," and she wouldn't "have to betray [her] faith" and no one else would "have to betray theirs."
On July 11, 2003, after the district court had followed the magistrate judge's recommendation and denied the Town Council's motion for summary judgment, the court conducted a bench trial. Six weeks later, the court issued its written opinion, granting judgment to Wynne and permanently enjoining the Town Council "from invoking the name of a specific deity associated with any one specific faith or belief in prayers given at Town Council meetings." The Town Council timely appealed.2
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, made applicable to the states and their political subdivisions through the Fourteenth Amendment, see Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 15, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947), commands that the Government "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." U.S. Const. amend I. Wynne contends that the Town Council's practice of invoking "Jesus Christ" at Council meetings violates the Establishment Clause by advancing the Christian religion. The Town Council counters that the Supreme Court's decision in Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 103 S.Ct. 3330, 77 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1983), dictates that the prayers at issue here pass constitutional muster under the Establishment Clause.
In Marsh, the Court upheld the Nebraska legislature's...
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