BATON ROUGE - A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Louisiana's law that every public school post a copy of the Ten Commandments cannot be enforced.

Three judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals said the law, which took effect Jan. 1, is "plainly unconstitutional" and upheld a previous ruling by a lower court barring the law from being upheld. The law required posters in classrooms with the commandments in "large, easily readable fonts."

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court found a similar Kentucky law unconstitutional because it had no secular purpose, and the 5th Circuit cites that precedent. Despite no enforcement for the law, the decision from the 5th Circuit said the law's language that the text "shall be displayed" meets the minimum requirements to be "materially identical" to the displays challenged in the Kentucky case.

The court also said the 1980 ruling that the poster of the commandments "serve[d] no... educational function" also applied.

Since the law's passing, the state's Attorney General's office and judges had conflicting opinions on how the law should be upheld in the midst of its battle in court; the AG's office said the order only affected districts affected in the lawsuit, while the previous judge's order directed the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the state's education secretary to tell all districts about his decision.

Attorney General Liz Murrill told WBRZ that the AG's office "strongly disagreed with the Fifth Circuit’s affirmance of an injunction preventing five Louisiana parishes from implementing [the law] and said the state would seek relief from the full Fifth Circuit and "if necessary, the U.S. Supreme Court."