WASHINGTON – A bitterly divided Supreme Court delivered mixed verdicts yesterday in two cases involving displays of the Ten Commandments on government property.

By a 5-4 vote, the court declared unconstitutional displays of the Decalogue in courthouses in two Kentucky counties. By the same margin, the court upheld the constitutionality of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas state capitol.

Justice Breyer was the only justice to vote with the majority in both decisions. In the Kentucky courthouse cases, he joined an opinion that found the history of those displays showed their purpose was unambiguously religious. But in the Texas case, the justice penned a separate opinion, concluding that the decades-old granite monument was acceptable because its purpose was predominantly secular.

The eagerly awaited rulings came on the last day of the court’s annual term. In recent weeks, the capital has been rife with speculation that Chief Justice Rehnquist, who is ill with thyroid cancer, might use the occasion to announce his resignation. The chief justice seemed to struggle to catch his breath during yesterday’s hour-long session and was at times difficult to understand, but neither he nor any other justice gave any hint of plans to step down.

While the court’s message in the Ten Commandments cases was muddled, on balance the rulings seemed to favor advocates of strict church-state separation. The decisions dashed the hopes of many conservative legal advocates that the court would use the two disputes to upend its confusing establishment clause jurisprudence and replace that doctrine with something friendlier to religious expression in the public sphere.

The author of the five-judge majority opinion in the Kentucky case, Justice Souter, dismissed arguments that the Ten Commandments displays were erected primarily for secular reasons. “The original text viewed in its entirety is an unmistakably religious statement dealing with religious obligations and with morality subject to religious sanction,” he wrote.

Justice Souter said a series of religion-imbued resolutions passed by the counties belied their claim that the displays, which eventually included other historical writings, were intended to educate the public about the roots of American democracy and law. “Context matters,” the justice said emphatically as he read portions of his opinion from the bench.

Justice Souter’s opinion, which also drew the support of Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, O’Connor, and Stevens, took note both of the long history of religious persecution and of the heated present-day debate about the proper role of religion in American politics. “We are centuries away from the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and the treatment of heretics in early Massachusetts, but the divisiveness of religion in current public life is inescapable,” the majority observed.

Justice Scalia, who wrote for the dissenters in the Kentucky cases, said that the court’s ruling was not neutral toward religious belief, but rather an attack upon it. “Today’s opinion ratchets up this court’s hostility to religion,” he said from the bench.

In a harshly worded dissent that often seemed to seethe with contempt for the majority, Justice Scalia accused the court of falling victim to “a revisionist agenda of secularization.” He noted that nearly 98% of religious believers in America adhere to Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, all of which venerate the Ten Commandments. He argued further that posting the Ten Commandments was no different from other practices the court has permitted, such as invocations of God at inaugural ceremonies or during legislative sessions.

“If religion in the public forum had to be entirely non-denominational, there could be no religion in the public forum at all,” Justice Scalia wrote in the dissent, which was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Kennedy, and Thomas. “One cannot say the word, ‘God,’ or ‘the Almighty,’ one cannot offer public supplication or thanksgiving, without contradicting the beliefs of some people that there are many gods, or that God or the gods pay no attention to human affairs.”

Justice Scalia also wrote that by focusing on the discussion behind the display rather than the display itself, the court was encouraging government officials to hide their true motives. “Displays erected in silence (and under the direction of good legal advice) are permissible, while those hung after discussion and debate are deemed unconstitutional,” the justice observed.

The court produced no majority opinion in the Texas case. Three other members of the court joined Chief Justice Rehnquist’s opinion upholding the Texas Ten Commandments monument because of what he said was its dual secular and religious purpose.

In a brief, eight-page opinion, Justice Breyer engaged in what he conceded was a largely subjective assessment of why the Texas monument was installed. It is one of thousands of similar displays placed around the country by a fraternal organization as part of what it maintained was a campaign against juvenile delinquency. The court opinion does not mention it, but the monuments were also part of a promotion for a Cecil B. DeMille film about the Decalogue.

Justice Breyer twice called the case “borderline,” and he emphasized that the monument had been in place for more than 40 years with no apparent objection. He also fretted that ordering the removal of the granite monument in Austin could prompt a wave of lawsuits over “longstanding depictions of the Ten Commandments from public buildings across the nation.”

Justice O’Connor’s presence among the bloc of justices opposed to the Ten Commandments displays in both Kentucky and Texas came as a bitter disappointment to many conservatives. Some griped audibly about her as they left the court yesterday.

In an opinion she filed in the Kentucky case, Justice O’Connor made clear that she is starkly at odds with Justice Scalia on the church-state issue. “It is true that many Americans find the commandments in accord with their personal beliefs. But we do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment,” she wrote.

Outside the courthouse, a circus-like atmosphere prevailed. The capital’s stifling humidity mingled with a large crowd of tourists curious about a possible resignation from the court, and a crush of self-appointed spokespeople eager to appear before the assembled television cameras to comment about the Ten Commandments cases.

“We have no definitive clear rule from these decisions today,” said Mathew Staver, an attorney with a conservative legal group, Liberty Counsel.

A leading advocate of church-state separation, the Reverend Barry Lynn of Americans United, also lamented the ambiguity. “These split decisions just guarantee that there will be far more lawsuits and far more confusion,” he said.

One of the few groups to pronounce itself pleased with the court’s awkward balance was the Orthodox Union. “Those who would remove from the public square any symbol with a religious pedigree have been rebuffed; as have those who would deliberately use public resources to promote a particular religious message,” the Jewish organization’s director of public policy, Nathan Diament, said. “These rulings are a victory for a sensible and moderate approach.”

An attorney with the liberal American Jewish Congress, Marc Stern, said he was worried that the confusing rulings punted the issue back to district court judges, who have often sided with the government. “If you’re looking for a symbolic victory, we may have one. If you’re looking for who wins more cases, I think they may win more cases than we do,” he said.

A law professor at New York University, Noah Feldman, said the decisions would only confirm the widely held view in academia that the court’s establishment clause jurisprudence is essentially incoherent. “It’s a mess,” Mr. Feldman said, noting that the less permanent display was ordered removed while the granite installation was allowed to remain. “It just does not hold water, logically speaking.”

YESTERDAY’S RULINGS

The Supreme Court yesterday met for the final time this term and:

* Issued two 5-4 rulings that upheld the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments on government land, but only in some circumstances.

* Ruled unanimously that Internet file sharing services will be held responsible if they intend for their customers to use software primarily to swap songs and movies illegally.

* Decided 6-3 that cable companies may keep rival Internet providers from using their lines.

* Ruled 5-4 that an appeals court improperly gave a Tennessee death row inmate a second chance.

* Rejected appeals from two journalists who have refused to testify before a grand jury about the leak of an undercover CIA officer’s identity.

* Ruled 7-2 that police cannot be sued for how they enforce restraining orders.

* Agreed to clarify when evidence collected during improper police searches can be used against a criminal suspect.

* Said it would consider whether federal employees can sue in federal court for alleged constitutional violations.