c. 2003 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Roy S. Moore, the judge who defied a court order declaring his placement of a Ten Commandments monument in a court building rotunda was unconstitutional, has been removed from office by Alabama’s Court of the Judiciary.

Now the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, Moore was unanimously voted off the bench by judges considering ethics charges against him.

“In defying that court’s order, the chief justice placed himself above the law,” said Chief Judge William C. Thompson, announcing the decision Thursday (Nov. 13) after a one-day trial.

Moore served as the state’s chief judicial officer from January 2001 until his recent suspension when the ethics charges were filed. He installed the controversial, 5,300-pound monument in the judicial building in August 2001. Two years later, he publicly declared he would not remove it even though a district court had ruled he should. An appeals court had affirmed the lower court ruling and the Supreme Court refused to hear his case.

Moore, addressing supporters immediately after the Court of the Judiciary announced its decision, said he was not surprised by the ruling.

“This case is about whether or not we as a state can acknowledge God,” he said. “The Court of the Judiciary … has said that I will be removed from office because I will continue to acknowledge God.”

He said such acknowledgment must continue to be pursued.

“Unless we do … `in God we trust’ will be taken from our money and `one nation under God’ from our pledge,” he said.

But the nine-member panel emphasized in its 13-page judgment they were dealing with ethics and not religion.

“It is not a case about the public display of the Ten commandments in the State Judicial Building nor the acknowledgment of God,” they wrote. “Indeed, we recognize that the acknowledgment of God is very much a vital part of the public and private fabric of our country.”

They determined he had violated state canons of judicial ethics, which call for him to uphold the integrity of the judiciary and respect the law.

“Chief Justice Moore did not have the legal authority to decide whether the federal court order issued to him in his official capacity as the state’s highest judicial officer should be obeyed,” they wrote. “Rather, he was constitutionally mandated to obey it.”

The judges had the options of censuring Moore, suspending him without pay or removing him from office, but they said removal was the only suitable penalty.

“Anything short of removal would only serve to set up another confrontation that would ultimately bring us back to where we are today,” they concluded.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State welcomed the judgment.

“Moore flagrantly announced his intention to violate a federal court order, made a mockery of the legal system and created an unseemly media circus,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based watchdog group, in a statement. “Today he learned the results of that defiance. The Court of the Judiciary has served the cause of justice.”

His organization was among the groups that sued for the monument’s removal.

But groups that had supported Moore remained by his side.

“The action taken today by the Court of the Judiciary has reduced the constitutional oath of office to a frivolous and meaningless exercise that now has no value,” said John Giles, president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, in a statement.

The one day of testimony _ with Moore as the sole witness _ and the subsequent ruling were made in the same building where the controversial monument remains stored away.

Moore told his supporters he hopes the monument might be moved to the U.S. Capitol to help foster the “true meaning” of the First Amendment.

He said he would be discussing with his attorneys what he would do next.

Michael Broyde, a law professor in Emory University Law School’s Law and Religion Program, said the case was less murky than the plethora of decisions that have been issued about Ten Commandments monuments.

“It’s not obvious how any given Ten Commandments case gets resolved,” he said. “What is obvious is when a federal judge turns to you and says `Do this’ and you don’t do it, you’re going to get sanctioned.”

Defiance, not divinity, was the concern of the Court of the Judiciary, Broyde said.

“It’s actually very simple and it has nothing to do with religion,” he said. “Had they ordered him to take down the words `There is no God’ and he had defied them, the same result would have been reached.”

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