Moore seeks reinstatement in appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

WASHINGTON — Judge Roy Moore has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse an Alabama judicial ruling that removed him as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

The appeal was filed July 29, Moore and his legal team announced at a news conference Aug. 2 in Montgomery.

Two key issues are raised in the appeal, according to the Foundation for Moral Law, a Montgomery-based organization defending Moore and seeking to advance his views on constitutional issues:

“(1) The Alabama courts violated the First Amendment by forcing Chief Justice Moore to choose between acknowledging God and his elected position, and (2) Chief Justice Moore was denied due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment because the Alabama courts refused to hear his defense that the federal court order demanding that he remove the Ten Commandments monument was itself unlawful and not ethically binding on him.”

Moore, who was elected as Alabama’s top judicial official in November 2000, ordered that a granite Ten Commandments monument be placed in the State Judicial Building’s rotunda in July 2001. Moore declared his action as consistent with his duties as chief justice and did not consult with the court’s other justices.

After losing numerous court battles over the monument in 2002 and the first half of 2003, Moore was removed from office last November by an Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission, which ruled that he had violated the state’s code of judicial ethics by not following a federal court order to remove the monument. Moore lost an appeal of the commission in an April ruling by a Special Alabama Supreme Court, which was formed after Moore’s fellow justices recused themselves from the case.

The privately financed 5,300-pound monument was removed from public view in the judicial building by state workers in August 2003. The Ten Commandments monument is now touring the country. Its first stop was in Dayton, Tenn., where the evolution vs. creation “Scopes Monkey Trialî took place in 1925. According to news reports, the tour will include an Oct. 22 rally in Washington. It is being sponsored by an organization called American Veterans in Domestic Defense.

“This is about Judge Moore’s acknowledgment of a Judeo-Christian God,” one of Moore’s attorney’s, Phillip L. Jauregui, said at the news conference, according to the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper.

Argument outlined
Moore has contended that he is upholding the Alabama constitution, which states in its preamble that the “people of Alabama” invoke “the favor and guidance of Almighty God.”

“When I took an oath of office, I professed, ‘So help me God,’ Moore said during the news conference, according to the Advertiser. “Every state and public official who was sworn into office took that same oath. Even Congress says a prayer before beginning business. Every state institution acknowledges God, so why can’t I?”

Moore also described the issue as “a state body saying, ‘Think like we do or you can’t keep office,’” the Advertiser reported. “The (Alabama Supreme Court) basically said you will not hold public office if you will not deny God.”

The judge acknowledged, “If the Supreme Court doesn’t hear (the appeal), then it will be over.” If so, “then I’ll have to sit down and consider what I’m going to do from there.”

Moore’s appeal asks the court, in part, to rule on: “Whether, under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment as applied to the states, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary required an unconstitutional religious test as a qualification to public office when it removed Alabama Chief Justice Roy S. Moore from office because he refused to obey a federal court order—and unrepentantly would continue to refuse any similar court order—prohibiting him from freely acknowledging God as the moral foundation of law.”

Moore first came to the national spotlight as a county court judge in Alabama who prevailed in court when challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union for having a Ten Commandments plaque in his courtroom.

Meanwhile, a bill has been filed in Congress, titled the Constitution Restoration Act of 2004 and sponsored by two Alabamians, Sen. Richard Shelby and U.S. Rep. Robert Aderhold, to amend the federal judicial code “to prohibit the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal district courts from exercising jurisdiction over any matter” involving the “acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government” by a federal, state or local government or official.

The bill in the Senate, S. 2082, is in the Judiciary Committee; in the House, H.R. 3799 is in the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. No hearings have been held on the proposed legislation.

Published by Keener Communications Group, September 2004

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