Walter
11-14-03, 05:45 PM
Defied US order to remove display
By Lyle Denniston, Globe Correspondent, 11/14/2003
WASHINGTON -- Roy S. Moore, known as the "Ten Commandments judge" and now a folk hero to religious conservatives, was ousted yesterday as Alabama's chief justice for disobeying a federal court mandate to remove a religious monument from the state judicial building.
The nine-member Court of the Judiciary, a state ethics tribunal, ordered Moore off the bench for openly and repeatedly defying a federal judge's order to take a large Ten Commandments display out of the rotunda of the court building in Montgomery.
Imposing the most severe punishment available, the ethics court said Moore has refused to give any assurances that he would obey that order or any similar order in the future.
"There is no penalty short of removal from office that would resolve this issue," the court said in its ruling. "Anything short of removal would only serve to set up another confrontation that would ultimately bring us back to where we are today."
The judges added: "Chief Justice Moore did not have the legal authority to decide whether the federal court order issued to him in his official capacity . . . should be obeyed; rather, he was constitutionally mandated to obey it."
The monument was removed from its prominent public place in August. After a federal appeals court upheld the removal order, Moore's eight colleagues on the state Supreme Court voted to overrule him and carry out the removal.
The display, in the form of a large marble lectern with a book open to the Ten Commandments carved into the top, is now stored in a closet in the same building.
The US Supreme Court later refused to hear two appeals by Moore.
Moore, in testifying before the ethics court on Wednesday, had reaffirmed his earlier statements that he had no apologies for refusing to carry out the order to remove the display. "I would do it again," he said.
After the ethics court's ruling, Moore said outside the courthouse that he had no regrets, but would consult with advisers before deciding whether to appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court.
The ethics court could have censured Moore or suspended him without pay. He was temporarily suspended with pay in August when six ethics complaints against him were filed by a state Judicial Inquiry Commission. The Court of the Judiciary upheld all six of those complaints, which charged that he had brought disrespect on the courts by failing to obey the law.
Although Moore loses his seat on the state's highest court, a seat he won in 2000 after a campaign focusing on his support of the public display of the Ten Commandments, he is not barred from trying to win election to that post again, according to William Stewart, professor of political science at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and a specialist on the state constitution.
Governor Bob Riley, a Republican who previously had backed Moore's support of public displays of the Ten Commandments, will appoint a replacement, but the new chief justice would serve only until the next election, scheduled in November 2004. The chief justice chosen then would serve out Moore's six-year term, which he began on Jan. 1, 2001.
Moore could run for the post because the ethics court does not have the power to disqualify him permanently. But one of the groups that had challenged his monuments display, the Southern Poverty Law Center, said it would seek to have him disbarred as a lawyer in Alabama -- a move that, if successful, would disqualify him for election to the chief justiceship, Stewart said.
In ousting Moore, the state court stressed that the case was "not about the public display of the Ten Commandments" in the state courthouse or about "the acknowledgment of God" -- a phrase Moore used repeatedly to justify his actions. The court said it "recognized that the acknowledgment of God is very much a vital part of the public and private fabric of our country." But it went on to stress that the court's only task was to weigh the claim of a violation of the code of ethics for judges.
By Lyle Denniston, Globe Correspondent, 11/14/2003
WASHINGTON -- Roy S. Moore, known as the "Ten Commandments judge" and now a folk hero to religious conservatives, was ousted yesterday as Alabama's chief justice for disobeying a federal court mandate to remove a religious monument from the state judicial building.
The nine-member Court of the Judiciary, a state ethics tribunal, ordered Moore off the bench for openly and repeatedly defying a federal judge's order to take a large Ten Commandments display out of the rotunda of the court building in Montgomery.
Imposing the most severe punishment available, the ethics court said Moore has refused to give any assurances that he would obey that order or any similar order in the future.
"There is no penalty short of removal from office that would resolve this issue," the court said in its ruling. "Anything short of removal would only serve to set up another confrontation that would ultimately bring us back to where we are today."
The judges added: "Chief Justice Moore did not have the legal authority to decide whether the federal court order issued to him in his official capacity . . . should be obeyed; rather, he was constitutionally mandated to obey it."
The monument was removed from its prominent public place in August. After a federal appeals court upheld the removal order, Moore's eight colleagues on the state Supreme Court voted to overrule him and carry out the removal.
The display, in the form of a large marble lectern with a book open to the Ten Commandments carved into the top, is now stored in a closet in the same building.
The US Supreme Court later refused to hear two appeals by Moore.
Moore, in testifying before the ethics court on Wednesday, had reaffirmed his earlier statements that he had no apologies for refusing to carry out the order to remove the display. "I would do it again," he said.
After the ethics court's ruling, Moore said outside the courthouse that he had no regrets, but would consult with advisers before deciding whether to appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court.
The ethics court could have censured Moore or suspended him without pay. He was temporarily suspended with pay in August when six ethics complaints against him were filed by a state Judicial Inquiry Commission. The Court of the Judiciary upheld all six of those complaints, which charged that he had brought disrespect on the courts by failing to obey the law.
Although Moore loses his seat on the state's highest court, a seat he won in 2000 after a campaign focusing on his support of the public display of the Ten Commandments, he is not barred from trying to win election to that post again, according to William Stewart, professor of political science at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and a specialist on the state constitution.
Governor Bob Riley, a Republican who previously had backed Moore's support of public displays of the Ten Commandments, will appoint a replacement, but the new chief justice would serve only until the next election, scheduled in November 2004. The chief justice chosen then would serve out Moore's six-year term, which he began on Jan. 1, 2001.
Moore could run for the post because the ethics court does not have the power to disqualify him permanently. But one of the groups that had challenged his monuments display, the Southern Poverty Law Center, said it would seek to have him disbarred as a lawyer in Alabama -- a move that, if successful, would disqualify him for election to the chief justiceship, Stewart said.
In ousting Moore, the state court stressed that the case was "not about the public display of the Ten Commandments" in the state courthouse or about "the acknowledgment of God" -- a phrase Moore used repeatedly to justify his actions. The court said it "recognized that the acknowledgment of God is very much a vital part of the public and private fabric of our country." But it went on to stress that the court's only task was to weigh the claim of a violation of the code of ethics for judges.