No vanity plate for West Rutland man yet
Toolbox
By Alan J. Keays Herald Staff - Published: August 10, 2005
A federal magistrate has recommended against issuing a West Rutland man a vanity license plate with a biblical message on it, at least for now.
However, in the same ruling, the magistrate denied a bid by the state Department of Motor Vehicles to have the case dismissed.
Federal Magistrate Judge Jerome J. Niedermeier issued his 25-page "report & recommendation" last week. Attorneys for the DMV and Shawn Byrne of West Rutland, who is seeking a vanity license plate with "JN36TN," have until next week to decide if they will file any objections to the report.
Then it will be up to a U.S. District Court judge to decide whether to adopt the magistrate's recommendations.
"Although Byrne has not met the higher standard required for a mandatory injunction, it would be premature to dismiss his complaint at this stage," Niedermeier wrote in his report.
"Although the statute appears to be viewpoint neutral on its face, Byrne asserts that some religious references have been permitted by the DMV," the magistrate wrote. "If that is the case, Byrne may have a viable equal protection claim, as distinctions between religious speech would not reasonable."
A 45-minutes hearing was held in June in federal court in Burlington, with both sides presenting arguments. Niedermeier took the issue under advisement and issued his report last week.
The two sides in the case had different takes on the ruling Tuesday.
Assistant Attorney General Tim Tomasi, representing the DMV, said he was "gratified" with the magistrate's preliminary ruling.
"We thought that the magistrate basically adopted most of the viewpoints and arguments that we set out in support of the state's policy regarding license plates," he said. "That is, essentially, that the license plates are government property … There is the sense that the government can be seen as endorsing the message that is on there."
To avoid that, Vermont regulations state that license plates are not allowed to have a combination of letters or numbers that refer to any language to race, religion, color, deity, ethnic heritage, gender, sexual orientation, disability status or political affiliation.
Plate -- jumpline
"The real meat of the plaintiff's case would be disposed of if this ruling is adopted by the trial court," Tomasi said. "Basically, the court has said our policy is right. The only thing that can go forward is if there is a question that someone in state government is not applying it in the right way."
That issue was raised by Byrne's attorneys when they contended that a series of Vermont vanity plates seen on vehicles appear to convey religious messages. Those plates include: "PSALM," and "RI-CHUS," for the books of Psalms in the Bible, and righteous, according to Byrne's attorneys.
"It's possible some have gotten through just because some of the law has been changing over the years or sometimes it's hard to know the message specifically because of the different letter combinations you don't even know what they mean," Tomasi said Tuesday. "If they exist, they were just mistakes."
Jeremy Tedesco of the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative organization that states it defends religious liberty, represented Byrne.
"The case goes forward," he said Tuesday, pointing out the magistrate did not call for dismissing the matter. "We're confident and we'll make our arguments all the way up the ladder."
Tedesco added that the ruling, at this point, is only preliminary.
"We just have to wait to see what the district court judge does," he said. "The district court judge will look at the case with fresh eyes and determine whether the magistrate judge was right or wrong."
Byrne filed his lawsuit against the state Department of Motor Vehicles in January after the state rejected his request for a vanity license plate for his restored 1966 Ford pickup.
"He wants people to understand God has given him the gifts to do it," Tedesco said at the earlier hearing of Byrne's car restoration effort.
The state contended, and Byrne's lawyers conceded that two of his requests on his vanity plate application, "JOHN316" and "JN316" did not meet a provision for vanity plates in Vermont that they not contain more than two numerals to avoid confusion with standard-issued license plates.
However, the state also rejected Byrne's third vanity license plate choice, "JN36TN," arguing that it contains a religious viewpoint. Byrne's attorneys argued the denial of the plate is a violation of his First Amendment rights.
"John 3:16" refers to a Bible scripture passage, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
About 35,000 vanity plates are issued in Vermont. Payment of an annual fee of $30, in addition to the annual fee for registration, is required for vanity plates.
Contact Alan J. Keays at alan.keays@rutlandherald.com.
13