(The Center Square) − Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is asking the full U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a panel decision that struck down the state’s controversial Ten Commandments law as unconstitutional.
On Wednesday, Murrill’s office filed a petition for an en banc review, meaning all active judges on the 5th Circuit would rehear the case.
The request comes after a three-judge panel ruled last week that the law — which requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom — violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
“Today, my office filed a petition seeking the full 5th Circuit’s review in our litigation regarding Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law,” Murrill said in a statement. “The 5th Circuit’s panel decision in this case directly rejected the 5th Circuit’s own precedents and precedents from other circuits and the Supreme Court. This is exactly the sort of case that warrants full Court review, and we appreciate the Court’s careful consideration.”
A day after the panel’s decision, an unnamed 5th Circuit judge issued an order pausing the ruling, temporarily blocking it from being sent back to the lower court. That procedural move opened the door for the state to pursue the en banc appeal.
In the petition, Murrill argues the panel wrongly disregarded existing 5th Circuit and Supreme Court precedents by ruling against the law without any actual implementation of the classroom displays. Her office contends that no display has been posted yet, meaning no plaintiff has actually seen one or been exposed to it — a key threshold for standing under prior 5th Circuit decisions.
“This Court’s precedents require an encounter with the offending item or action to confer standing,” the petition reads, pointing to previous rulings that blocked lawsuits until a person actually confronted a religious display.
The panel’s decision, Murrill argues, improperly allows plaintiffs to sue based on the expectation that they “certainly will experience” exposure, rather than an actual encounter.
The filing also claims the panel relied on outdated legal standards, particularly the so-called Lemon test, which the U.S. Supreme Court officially abandoned in recent rulings like Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.
Murrill asserts that the panel’s reliance on Lemon conflicts with how other federal circuits now evaluate religious display cases, particularly the 3rd and 4th Circuits, which use a history-based test requiring plaintiffs to show that a government practice mirrors a historical hallmark of religious establishment.
“This is not how facial analysis works,” the state’s petition argues, noting that the law applies not just to K-12 schools but also to public universities, where the dynamics around religious influence are different.
The Ten Commandments law, passed in 2024, mandates that schools post the biblical text in a prominent position in each classroom. Supporters, including Gov. Jeff Landry, argue it reflects the historical influence of the Ten Commandments on American law.
Opponents, including the ACLU of Louisiana, argue it forces religious messages onto students in violation of the First Amendment.
The 5th Circuit’s decision has been one of the most closely watched church-state separation cases in the country this year. If the full court agrees to rehear the case, the outcome could differ significantly given that a majority of the 5th Circuit’s active judges were appointed by Republican presidents, including six by Donald Trump.
For now, the lower court’s injunction blocking the law remains in place for several school districts, including East Baton Rouge, Livingston, Orleans, St. Tammany, and Vernon. The court has not yet said whether it will grant the en banc review.
