Justices Take Case on Prayer at Town Board Meetings WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide cases concerning prayers at the start of town meetings and a patent dispute over heart monitors. It also issued an important administrative law decision that said the Federal Communications Commission was entitled to deference in determining the scope of its own jurisdiction. Legislative Prayer The case concerning prayers, Town of Greece v. Galloway, No. 12-696, came from Greece, a town near Rochester. For more than a decade starting in 1999, the town board began its public meetings with a prayer from a "chaplain of the month." Town officials said that members of all faiths and atheists were welcome to give the opening prayer. In practice, the federal appeals court in New York said, almost all of the chaplains were Christian. "A substantial majority of the prayers in the record contained uniquely Christian language," Judge Guido Calabresi wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. "Roughly two-thirds contained references to "Jesus Christ," "Jesus," "Your Son" or the "Holy Spirit.'" Two town residents sued, saying the prayers ran afoul of the First Amendment's prohibition of the government establishment of religion. The appeals court agreed. "The town's prayer practice must be viewed as an endorsement of a particular religious viewpoint," Judge Calabresi wrote. In 1983, in Marsh v. Chambers, the Supreme Court upheld the Nebraska Legislature's practice of opening its legislative sessions with an invocation from a paid Presbyterian minister, saying that such ceremonies were "deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country." David Cortman, a lawyer for the town, said its practices were consistent with that tradition. "Americans today should be as free as the founders were to pray," he said in a statement. The founders prayed while drafting our Constitution's Bill of Rights. The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the group behind the lawsuit, said the Supreme Court should bar prayers in governmental settings like town meetings. "A town council meeting isn't a church service, and it shouldn't seem like one," he said in a statement. Government can't serve everyone in the community when it endorses one faith over others. That sends the clear message that some are second-class citizens based on what they believe about religion. Medical Devices The justices also agreed to consider which side bears the burden of proof in some patent disputes. The case, Medtronic Inc. v Boston Scientific Corp, No. 12-1128, concerns devices made by Medtronic that deliver electrical jolts to the heart when it fails to pump normally. Medtronic licensed patents owned by Mirowski Family Ventures concerning various aspects of such "cardiac resynchronization therapy." The license agreement also addressed new products developed by Medtronic, requiring it to pay royalties on ones said to be infringing the patents or to go to court for a "declaration of noninfringement." In 2007, the patent owner identified various asserted infringements, and Medtronic asked the courts to decide the matter. The question for the justices is whether a federal appeals court in Washington was right last year when it put the burden on Medtronic to prove it had not infringed the patents. In the ordinary case, it is the patent holder that must prove infringement. Administrative Law The administrative-law case, City of Arlington v. Federal Communications Commission, No. 11-1545, concerned a 1996 federal law that requires state and local authorities to act "within a reasonable period of time" after receiving applications to build or alter wireless facilities. In response to a request from a trade association for the wireless industry, the commission made two decisions. First, it found that it had jurisdiction to define what a reasonable time was. Second, it said that 90 or 150 days were generally appropriate deadlines, depending on the circumstances. Two Texas cities, Arlington and San Antonio, said Congress had not authorized the commission to act in the first place, pointing to a part of the law that said it was not meant to limit the power of state and local governments. The general rules in this area were set out by the Supreme Court in 1984 in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which said that judges should defer to an administrative agency's views when Congress itself has not spoken clearly. That general framework, the court said Monday, applies to an agency's determination of whether it has the power to act at all. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said it did. "The distinction between "jurisdictional" and "nonjurisdictional" interpretations," he wrote, "is a mirage." "The false dichotomy between "jurisdictional" and "nonjurisdictional" agency intepretations may be no more than a bogeyman," he continued, "but it is dangerous all the same. Like the Hound of the Baskervilles, it is conjured by those with greater quarry in sight: Make no mistake - the ultimate target here is Chevron itself. An unusual coalition - Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - joined Justice Scalia's opinion without reservation. In a concurrence, Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined the majority for the most part but suggested a less categorical approach. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr., issued a cutting dissent that accused the majority of abdicating judicial responsibility in favor of a federal bureaucracy with vast and unsupervised power. "It would be a bit much to describe the result as "the very definitiion of tyrrany,'" Chief Justice Roberts wrote, quoting a phrase from James Madison about the dangers of concentrating too much power in the same hands, "but the danger posed by the growing power of the administrative state cannot be dismissed." Jonathan H. Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, said the decision "could make it more difficult for both industry and public interest groups to challenge agencies for departing from their statutory authority."