c. 2004 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) Judge Roy Moore, whose 5,300-pound Ten Commandments monument cost him his job as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, had his removal from office upheld Friday (April 30) by a special court of review.
The seven-member court unanimously ruled that former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s removal from office last year was “proper” because he violated state ethics codes when he defied a federal court order to remove the monument.
Moore was tossed off the bench last November by a state Court of the Judiciary. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley appointed seven retired judges to serve on the special court to hear Moore’s appeal of his removal.
“We conclude … that the sanction of removal from office was not plainly and palpably wrong, manifestly unjust, or without supporting evidence,” the court ruled in its 35-page ruling.
“In fact, the evidence of Chief Justice Moore’s violations of the Canons of Judicial Ethics was sufficiently strong and convincing that the Court of the Judiciary could hardly have done otherwise than to impose the penatly of removal from office.”
The decision appears to be Moore’s last avenue of appeal on the state level. But, still defiant, Moore held out the possibility of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, which last year refused to hear his case.
Moore rebuffed the judgment of the “illegally appointed, politically selected” court in a written statement.
“This is about the acknowledgment of God and many justices can’t admit they are wrong and that they can enter unlawful orders,” he said. “The rule of law is the written law and it is clear. The people of Alabama have a right to acknowledge God and no judge or group of judges has the right to take it away from them.”
In arguments held in February, Assistant Attorney General Charles Campbell argued that Moore “took the law into his own hands, and he broke it.” Moore’s lawyers argued he had the right to acknowledge God, as well as to disobey an order that he felt was unjust.
The court, in its decision, said the case was about judicial arrogance, not religious faith.
“The Court of the Judiciary had before it clear and convincing evidence that Chief Justice Roy Moore violated … the Canons of Ethics … by willfully refusing to obey a lawful and binding order of a federal court,” the court said.
Moore was elected to the state’s highest court in 2000 after riding a wave of popular support for his crusades to display the 10 Commandments in Alabama courtrooms.
That support peaked in July 2001, when Moore placed the massive granite monument in the judicial building’s rotunda under the cover of darkness, and then refused to remove it. His support ebbed, however, when he defied a federal appeals court order to move the monument, which was removed by eight fellow justices to a storage room last August.
In a pointed rebuke of Moore’s defiance, Special Justice Harry Wilters quoted from the Bible in a concurring opinion, saying Moore brought his troubles upon himself.
“Anyone who rebels against authority is resisting a divine institution, and those who so resist have themselves to thank for the punishment they receive,” he said, quoting from the New Testament book of Romans.
DEA/JL END ECKSTROM
