That could result in Moore’s immediate removal from office.
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Drag queen Ambrosia Starling, left, talks to the media while supporters of suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore listen during a rally in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, Aug. 8, 2016.
“Chief Justice Moore has asked this federal court to hold that the disqualification provision of the Judicial Article of the Alabama Constitution violates his due process rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and to enjoin its enforcement and reinstate him fully to his service as Chief Justice while the charges against him are proceeding”, he wrote. Moore will go to trial on his ethics charges September 28.
The facts of the case are not in dispute: Six months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that everyone has a fundamental right to marry, Roy Moore sent an order to 68 probate judges saying the Alabama Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ban remained in effect.
Moore denied telling probate judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal orders. The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission also argued for its motion for the court to remove Moore from the bench now for issuing that order, despite federal and U.S. Supreme Court opinions and orders that says gay marriage is legal nationwide. Moore said he was only noting the order had not been lifted.
“While the JIC contends that my motivation to issue the administrative order was to defy the federal courts, the following excerpts from my memoranda to the court … indicate that I strongly encouraged my colleagues to dispel the existing concern and uncertainty by promptly addressing the question”, Moore previously told the court.
U.S. District Court Judge W. Harold Albritton issued a notice that he was dismissing the suit because he does not believe that federal courts should intervene in state proceedings.
Moore was removed from the bench as chief justice in 2003 after refusing a federal court order to remove a 10 Commandments monument from the state judicial building.
Moore argues he was only trying to clear up confusion about the probate judges, many of whom are not lawyers, and he has denied ordering them to violate the high court order.
October 2012: While campaigning again for the office of chief justice, emphasizing his conservative values and experience, Moore says legalizing gay marriage would lead to the nation’s “ultimate destruction”.
It was the second time Moore sat in the courtroom as a defendant before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary.
Staver repeatedly emphasized a section where Moore said he was not at liberty to provide guidance to the judges on what to do.
Moore’s legal representative, Mathew Staver, the chairman of Liberty Counsel, contends the charges are politically motivated. He used a so-called “Younger abstention” to effectively take the federal courts out of the matter entirely. “The Chief Justice, however, did not on his own initiative direct the probate judges to follow Alabama marriage law. Judge Roy Moore is part of my family as a believer”, Chasom said. After the hearing, he spoke to a sign-waving crowd outside, saying there is “no evidence” he broke judicial ethics and that he never told judges what to do.
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The court concluded its hearing Monday around 3:45 PM EDT.
