The Alabama Court of the Judiciary, the state body that disciplines judges, will decide if the 69-year-old outspoken Republican jurist stands violated judicial ethics with a January order to probate judges regarding the status of same-sex marriage litigation in Alabama.
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While the charges against Moore were brought by the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission, he accused the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of being the true source of the accusations.
Suspended Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore will go on trial next month on judicial ethics charges after the Alabama Court of the Judiciary late Monday issued an order that denied Moore’s request to dismiss the charges.
January 2016: Acting without the other justices, Moore sends an administrative order telling probate judges that the state Supreme Court’s March order to refuse marriage licenses to gay couples remains in “full force and effect” because it has not been lifted by the state court.
“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.
“They are trying him on something that happened 13 years ago”, Staver said, referring to Moore’s first ouster from the bench in 2003 when he defied a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument form the state court building.
Carroll is representing the state Judicial Inquiry Commission, whose investigators recommended Moore’s removal.
“Moore has said he was simply trying to clarify that a previous state ban on issuing marriage licenses to gay couples remained in effect because his fellow justices had not moved to rescind it”, the AP reports.
Moore’s attorney, Matt Staver, said Moore did not order probate judges to directly violate the U.S. Supreme Court.
Former federal magistrate John Carroll says this defense argument “defies common sense”.
Roy Moore’s supporters applauded as he entered the courtroom where usually presides over state Supreme Court hearings.
There are rallies expected from both sides of this case outside the Supreme Court building before the hearing. “Ask yourself … did the chief justice advocate open defiance?” Staver repeatedly emphasized a section where Moore said he was not at liberty to provide guidance to the judges on what to do. “He acts as if he is the ayatollah of Alabama”, SPLC President Richard Cohen said after the hearing.
A complaint was lodged against Moore for violating judicial ethics with the Judicial Inquiry Commission, which made a decision to prosecute the case in May.
After the hearing Staver told a crowd of Moore supporters on the steps of the judicial building that the charges are “politically motivate”.
“The probate judges were flapping in the wind”.
Sherry Robinson, a mother of eight, was one who drove from Hoover to stand with Moore saying he has consistently upheld the law and that the Alabama chief justice is being “sacrificed for a political agenda”. We’ve said it many times. “That means the Supreme Court holds the final authority over jurisdiction of law”, Starling drawled. She said she thought Moore was being persecuted for his conservative Christian beliefs.
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“My family is being persecuted”.
