ELKHART -- The case is closed, for good.
Elkhart's Ten Commandments monument, plucked from the soil outside the Municipal Building last week, will stay out of that soil, and off public land.
On Monday, U.S District Judge Allen Sharp denied an eleventh-hour request from a citizens group to reopen the case and revisit compromise solutions that would have kept the granite statue where it was.
The ruling came four days after city workers pulled the statue out of the ground. It will be moved to its new site on North Main Street within a few weeks, said Elkhart Mayor David Miller.
Miller supported the request to reopen the case, but was not surprised it was turned down.
"We'd hoped that maybe through some miracle that he might be willing to reopen the case," Miller said. "It was disappointing, but not entirely surprising."
In his ruling, Sharp wrote that he was sympathetic to the committee's request, but that he could not reopen the case.
"The rule of law must be respected even by those who are passionate in their disagreement with judicial decisions, and the law of this case at this time clearly precludes any further discussion of remedies," he wrote.
In December 1999, Sharp ruled that the monument could stay put, alone. But a federal appeals court later overruled him.
The judge's sentiment heartened Bob Weaver, co-founder of the committee. The group formed in May after Miller announced he was giving up the four-year legal fight, and raised about $55,000 to keep it going.
"The sad thing is, it is not gone because of the law, and not because of the (Indiana Civil Liberties Union), but because of a monetary interest," Weaver said. Earlier this year, Sharp ordered the city to pay the ICLU nearly $63,000 in legal fees, and Miller has said that expense is what led him to move the monument.
The ICLU is seeking another $5,189 from Elkhart for fees accrued in the later stages of the case.
The agency's legal director said Wednesday that he, and the two Elkhart residents he is representing, were happy with the outcome.
"The monument has been moved; it's going to private land," said Ken Falk. "We're satisfied."
Weaver said the $55,000 his group has raised will be returned to the donors, but that the committee might remain active on future church-state issues in the area.
The city of Mishawaka is preparing to move its Ten Commandments monument from outside City Hall to First United Methodist Church on East Third Street.
In July, the city followed Elkhart's lead and agreed to move its monument in the face of a lawsuit filed last year by the ICLU and a Mishawaka resident. It will make the move within 90 days.