Suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore goes on trial today before a judicial panel examining his defiance of a federal judge’s order to move his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state courthouse.
 Judge Moore supporter at “Save the Commandments” rally (Photo: WAFF.com) |
With a unanimous vote, the Court of Judiciary can remove Moore from his position. It also could decide to suspend or reprimand him if it concludes he violated judicial ethical standards.
In a pretrial brief Monday, Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor requested Moore be removed from office.
Pryor said the judge should be removed because he “intentionally and publicly engaged in misconduct, and because he remains unrepentant for his behavior.”
The chief justice should receive the severest penalty for his “sensational flouting of a valid federal injunction,” Pryor wrote.
 Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor (Photo: WSFA.com) |
Moore, who was suspended with pay Aug. 22, said he is “concerned about the court’s appearance” of bias, but he would not say whether he believed a fair trial is possible.
“I certainly have my personal opinion,” he said, according to the Mobile Register.
Asked if he would reveal it, he responded with a smile, “Well … no.”
On Aug. 5, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ordered removal of the washing machine-sized monument by Aug. 20. Thompson had ruled it violates the Constitution’s ban on government establishment of religion and must be removed from its public place in the rotunda.
Moore refused to remove the monument, declaring, “The point is, it’s not about violation of order, it’s about violation of my oath of office.”
 Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore (Photo: WSFA.com) |
“And my oath of office to the Constitution requires an acknowledgment of God,” he said. “It’s that simple.”
As WorldNetDaily reported the monument, which Moore installed two years ago, was moved Aug. 28 from the rotunda of the Judicial Building to a non-public back room.
Moore supporters launched a “Save the Commandments” Sunday that toured the state with the message the Ten Commandments is Alabama’s moral foundation.
In Huntsville, Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington, D.C., urged the crowd to oppose the decision not to air the trial proceedings on television or radio.
“Every citizen of Alabama needs to hear” the proceedings, Mahoney said, according to the Huntsville Times. “It’s tragic that your chief justice is [being prosecuted] for simply honoring God and posting the Ten Commandments. The posting of the Commandments unites Americans – 77 percent of Americans believe it should be posted.”
Organizer Rob Schenk said the purpose of the tour, which concludes today in front of the judicial building in Montgomery, is to “bring the principles at stake here into the public arena once again.”
Schenk said he is most concerned about upholding the right of Americans “to acknowledge the sovereignty of God over our land.”
“Secular nations have one thing in common – mass graves, and the reason is that they believe the government is the final arbiter of right and wrong and good and evil,” he said.
Editor’s note: “THE MYTH OF CHURCH-STATE SEPARATION” – the special November edition of WND’s acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine – documents conclusively that the modern legal doctrine of “separation of church and state” is the work of activist judges, and has utterly no basis in the Constitution.
Moore wrote a treatise on his battle to retain the monument in the July issue of Whistleblower magazine, WND’s monthly print publication.
In the August issue, entitled “LAW-LESS: Why many Americans fear attorneys and judges more than terrorists,” Roy Moore is the subject of an in-depth profile. Subscribe to Whistleblower magazine.
Previous stories:
Alabama moves to oust Judge Moore
Moore takes Decalogue battle to D.C.
Judge to hear lawsuit on 10 Commandments
Dobson, Keyes to join Moore rally
ACLU, Moore agree on 10 Commandments?
Judge Roy Moore: ‘Captain America’
10 Commandments showdown tonight
Backers of 10 Commandments to rally
