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SALT LAKE CITY — Three state agencies have sent letters to the Utah Highway Patrol Association requesting that all memorial crosses on public land be removed.
The action by the Utah Highway Patrol and the state departments of transportation and administrative services follow an Oct. 31 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to not hear Utah's appeal of a lower court decision banning the roadside memorials.
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and the Utah Highway Patrol Association had requested a discretionary review of a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that held that crosses on state property violate the separation of church and state.
"Pursuant to prior agreements, you are hereby requested to remove the memorials from the land controlled by this agency at your earliest convenience," stated identical letters to UHPA president Chad McWilliams from UDOT executive director John Njord and David G. Buxton, director of the state Division of Facilities Construction and Management.
The third letter, from UHP Superintendent Daniel Fuhr, asks that Utah Highway Patrol logos be removed from the memorials.
The UHPA made that change in November, removing the UHP logos from the 14 crosses and adding notes stating that they are private memorials and not an endorsement of any religion. Of the 14 crosses, 10 are on state land.
Letters from the state indicate that action doesn't go far enough.
The letters from Buxton and Njord also ask that McWilliams contact state officials to receive "the appropriate permission to go on state property to remove the memorial."
The Utah Highway Patrol Association has erected the 12-foot-tall, white crosses to memorialize troopers killed in the line of duty.
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