Since 1981, the Holy Name Society of Pittsburgh had placed a crèche on the grand staircase of the Allegheny County Courthouse.
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The Pittsburgh City-County Building (serving as City Hall) is separate from the courthouse, and is jointly owned by the city and county.
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The Supreme Court of the United States decided the case, which began in 1999, and found that, contra the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, "the Child Online Protection Act COPA's reliance on community standards to identify 'material that is harmful to minors' does not by itself render the statute substantially overbroad for purposes of the First Amendment" (majority opinion).
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COPA was Congress's second attempt to criminalize the Internet distribution of what it considered pornography, including simulated pornography and artwork.
The appeal from that decision, argued by Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel, urged reformulation or abandonment of the "Lemon test" set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman, which has been applied to religious displays on government property and to other Establishment Clause issues.