Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Wallace v. Jaffree

Wallace v. Jaffree enjoys the dubious distinction of being listed as one of the ten worst non-Supreme Court decisions in Bernard Schwartz's A Book of Legal Lists. The case involved a court challenge to the constitutionality of an Alabama statute authorizing a daily period of silence in Alabama's public schools for meditation or voluntary prayer.

The opinion from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama was written by Chief Judge W. Brevard Hand. It came to the surprising conclusion that the Establishment Clause of the FIRST AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution prohibited only the federal government from establishing a state religion and that the DUE PROCESS CLAUSE of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT did not make the prohibition binding on the...