Chief Justice Moore refuses to remove 10 commandments

Update:

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The state attorney general asked a judicial panel on Monday to remove suspended Chief Justice Roy Moore from office for defying a federal judge's order to take his Ten Commandments monument off public display in the state judicial building.

In a pretrial brief filed with the Alabama Court of the Judiciary, Attorney General Bill Pryor said Moore should be removed because he "intentionally and publicly engaged in misconduct, and because he remains unrepentant for his behavior."

Pryor's office is prosecuting Moore before the Court of the Judiciary on charges that the chief justice violated judicial canons. The trial-like proceeding begins Wednesday, and the court could remove Moore from office, suspend him, reprimand him or exonerate him.

Moore, who was suspended with pay when charged, expressed doubt Monday that he can receive a fair trial. He said he is concerned that cameras will not be allowed inside the courtroom for most of the trial.
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Story

Awww. Poor baby. :D
 
Moore's "trial" begins tomorrow. His public comments (especially the remark that he doesn't think he can get a fair hearing) suggest that he has a pretty good idea what the outcome is going to be.

One wonders whether the tribunal will be allowed to take into account the fact that Moore's antics are probably going to cost Alabama taxpayers several hundered thousand dollars in legal fees, which the state can ill afford to pay. Moore is contesting the fees, but he does not expect to have to pay a penny out of his own pocket.
 
I'm missing something--an ordinary person refuses a judge's order and they get thrown in jail for contempt of court... is Moore above that?
 
gnome said:
I'm missing something--an ordinary person refuses a judge's order and they get thrown in jail for contempt of court... is Moore above that?
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As reported in the Associated Press today, on his way into court, "Moore told reporters...he answers to a higher authority than a federal judge."
 
Is that the same authority that Hebrew National hot dogs answers to?

;-)



(Old tv ad.)
 
Here is a wrinkle that I find very disturbing... but I have not yet seen this reported in the mainstream media. This is a press release from Americans United For Separation of Church and State, and because it is a press release from a political organization, it is not subject to all the standards of professional journalism. (That is a nice way of saying that one might have reason to suspect that AU has put a spin on the story.)
Former Alabama Gov. Forrest H. “Fob” James has released an affidavit asserting that state Attorney General William Pryor [a Bush nominee for a seat on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals] agreed to help him defy the federal courts in a dispute over governmental display of the Ten Commandments.
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James, a former two-term Alabama governor, submitted the affidavit in an effort to force Pryor to recuse himself from prosecuting Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore. Moore is being prosecuted because earlier this year he defied a federal court order to remove a large Ten Commandments sculpture from the Alabama Judicial Building.

James was governor when Moore, then a local judge in Etowah County, Ala., was sued for displaying a Ten Commandments plaque in his courtroom. James backed Moore’s display and says he sought Pryor’s opinion on defying the federal courts, should a decision come down ordering Moore to remove the plaque.

In his affidavit, James asserts that Pryor agreed with James’ view that states can lawfully resist orders from federal courts.
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This is bothersome on a number of levels. First, it casts doubt upon whether Pryor will use his best efforts to prosecute Roy Moore. Second, the affidavit, if true, suggests that Pryor may not be a very wise person for a federal appellate judgeship.
 
Ding Dong the Witch is dead.....

Moore has been removed. I'd provide a link, but any news site has this story.
 
Awww that's too bad, darn gonna miss his clever Bon Mots like :"This isn't about religion , it's about allmighty God!"
 
I wouldn't dislike him so much if I thought even a little bit that he believes his own line of crap. Anybody who makes it through first year law knows better than the crap he is spewing.

Everything he says is calculated to go over well with an ignorant public.
 
scotth said:
Everything he says is calculated to go over well with an ignorant public.
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I think this hits the nail on the head. There will be those who will believe, wrongly, that Moore was removed from office because he was a Christian. They will spin this as a case of religious persecution. They will assert that his removal means that Christians cannot hold public office.

Moore's removal means none of these things, but I do not believe that a significant minority (perhaps even a majority) of the public is capable of understanding the simple distinctions or legal issues that are involved.
 
In the news article I read (AOL), it includes:

Moore said he had consulted with his attorneys and with political and religious leaders and would make an announcement next week which he said ''could alter the course of this country.'' He did not elaborate. He could appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court.

Gee, do you suppose the man plans on running for elected office? Perhaps President, even? What's sad is that he'll actually get some people to vote for him.
 
Originally posted by Cinorjer (quoting a widely published report)
Moore said he had consulted with his attorneys and with political and religious leaders and would make an announcement next week which he said ''could alter the course of this country.'' He did not elaborate.
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In another thread, I offered the following:
If I could take a guess at what kooky plan is rolling around inside that pea brain of his, I'd say he's planning to continue pushing the issue by spearheading or promoting litigation, or by pushing for a constitutional amendment allowing Commandments displays on public property (thereby repealing a portion of the First Amendment).
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On the subject of the "poll," I will say that the various news services have similar "polls" and the results are not uniform. The poll appearing yesterday at this TV news web site (the poll is no longer there) showed a majority (about 55% when I last checked) favoring Moore's removal from office. This same TV news web site conducted another "poll" a few weeks back about whether the Commandments monument should be removed, and 75% said "no."

Curiously, if the facts of this situation were exactly the same except that ex-Judge Moore installed a monument that listed the pillars of Islam, I suspect that most people in the country would have little difficulty understanding why the monument was inappropriate. In general, people don't mind governmental favoritism towards religion as long as it is THEIR religion that is favored; but people are opposed to governmental favoritism towards religion when SOMEONE ELSE'S religion is being promoted.
 
Here's the story from The New York Times (registration required). This report is different from the wire service reports that most other news services run. It includes more "flavor" of the events surrounding Moore's removal, including this little tidbit:
The verdict stunned the hushed courtroom over which he once presided. As soon as it was read, Mr. Moore's shoulders drooped. His wife winced. His supporters let out a gasp. In the marbled corridors outside, shouting matches broke out between friends of the ousted judge and a handful of atheists.

"Thanks for destroying our country," one man said to Larry Darby, president of the Atheist Law Center in Montgomery.

"Go to hell!" another man told Mr. Darby, bumping him.

"I can't," Mr. Darby said, straightening himself. "Hell doesn't exist."
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(Let's sing it all together now, "And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they'll know we are Christians by our love.")

The article quoted a professor who acknowledged the bravery exhibited by the ethics panel:
"I'm really surprised," said William Stewart, a political science professor at the University of Alabama. "Usually, when you get a group of nine people, at least one will be thinking not so much of doing the right thing but saving his own skin. This took courage. I don't see how voting against the Ten Commandments judge could help anybody's political career in any way."
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And there are those who demonstrate a lack of understanding of basic civics:
Many of Mr. Moore's supporters were outraged that an unelected panel had removed an elected justice.

"They're undoing a democratic process here," said Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition. "It smacks of third-world countries. It smacks of dictatorship."
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Gee, I wonder whether Mr. Mahoney felt the same way about the actions of the Supreme Court (an unelected body) settling the presidential election of 2000. And then there is this disturbing paragraph, which I find quite shocking:
Either way, Mr. Moore can run for chief justice again. The panel that removed Mr. Moore lacks the authority to permanently keep a judge off the bench.
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Regnad Kcin said:
As reported in the Associated Press today, on his way into court, "Moore told reporters...he answers to a higher authority than a federal judge."
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...he worships Hebrew National Hot Dogs??:D

Seriously, Moore should know better than that. No one is above the law, especially when they've taken an oath to obey & enforce it.

You can't change or ignore the laws, just because you don't think they're *right*. If you want to go the martyr route and lay down 'the law of God', be an evangelist & guest on Jack Van Impe or the 700 Club, and keep the Hell off the bench. If he still wants to judge something, let him judge Christian Swimsuit competitions
 
Boy, looking through this old thread sure brings back some memories.

But there is a real reason for bumping. The Bible display in a Houston courthouse has just been ordered to be removed.
"Its recent history would force an objective observer to conclude that it is a religious symbol of a particular faith located on public grounds," a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 decision.

Although secular in purpose when it was erected in front of the old civil courthouse in 1956, former state District Judge John Devine and his court reporter, Karen Friend, changed the character of the monument when they refurbished it in 1995, the majority said in a 24-page opinion.
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And what was the refurbishing that changed it from secular to religious?
Jolly, writing for the majority, said that the original purpose of honoring Mosher was secular, but that purpose was changed in 1995 when Devine and Friend placed a neon light inside the monument to outline the Bible.
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I wouldn't be surprised that the judges also noted that the monument had been used as a rallying point for all sorts of "put religion in government" crusades. It's a tiny step, but a good one.

I was reading this in our break room when somebody asked me, "Is there any good news today." I had to bite my tongue and say... "Um... well they found three new planets."
 
Tricky said:
Boy, looking through this old thread sure brings back some memories.
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I just read through the thread. Although there were quite a few dead-head remarks, on the whole, the thread was a good one. I might also say that I had forgotton how closely I had followed the issue.

Let's remind ourselves that the Supreme Court addressed the Ten Commandments in 2005 in the McCreary and Van Orden decisions:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=03-1693
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=03-1500

The plurality opinion of the late Chief Justice Rehnquist in Van Orden (a rationale that failed to win a majority of votes on the Court) contains a number of logical inconsistencies and general fluff, as does Justice Thomas's concurrence in Van Orden. But Justice Scalia's dissent in McCreary is downright scary and at times viciously insulting:
Besides appealing to the demonstrably false principle that the government cannot favor religion over irreligion, today's opinion suggests that the posting of the Ten Commandments violates the principle that the government cannot favor one religion over another. That is indeed a valid principle where public aid or assistance to religion is concerned, or where the free exercise of religion is at issue, but it necessarily applies in a more limited sense to public acknowledgment of the Creator. ... With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.
...
Historical practices thus demonstrate that there is a distance between the acknowledgment of a single Creator and the establishment of a religion. ... The three most popular religions in the United States, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam--which combined account for 97.7% of all believers--are monotheistic. All of them, moreover (Islam included), believe that the Ten Commandments were given by God to Moses, and are divine prescriptions for a virtuous life. Publicly honoring the Ten Commandments is thus indistinguishable, insofar as discriminating against other religions is concerned, from publicly honoring God. Both practices are recognized across such a broad and diverse range of the population--from Christians to Muslims--that they cannot be reasonably understood as a government endorsement of a particular religious viewpoint. (Citations omitted; emphasis is mine.)
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It seems clear that Justice Scalia is of the view that the government CAN take a stand on religious issues, with the First Amendment protecting the majority and allowing "disregard" of minority viewpoints.

Atheists, curiously, have no need for protection under the First Amendment's "Free Exercise" component, and Justice Scalia suggests that atheists' claims to protection under the "Establishment" component can be summarily disregarded.

Government can, for example, take the position that there definitely is a deity and that those who say otherwise are in the wrong. Government can also take the position that there is only ONE deity, and those who say that there may be more than one are in the wrong. Government can further take the position that the single deity may be called into action by recitation of words, and that those who say otherwise (which would include a number of deist "Founding Fathers") are in the wrong. And in addition, government can take the position about what pleases or displeases this single deity (the Commandments being at least a partial list of things the Almighty wants or does not want), and those who think otherwise are in the wrong.

What Justice Scalia fails to mention, however, is the source of the government's wisdom in such matters. How does the government know that there is a deity, and only one deity, and that this deity has certain likes or dislikes that predispose him to interfere or refrain from interfering in human affairs? In light of the ugly truth that the government has no knowledge on these matters, it is inappropriate for governmental bodies to take such official positions on them.

Justice Scalia seems to think that deciding religious questions is part of government's job (as long as there is no "Establishment," whatever that means). Others, including Justice Stevens, see that resolution of religious questions is a private function, not a governmental one. The government must remain neutral:
I recognize that the requirement that government must remain neutral between religion and irreligion would have seemed foreign to some of the Framers; so too would a requirement of neutrality between Jews and Christians. Fortunately, we are not bound by the Framers' expectations--we are bound by the legal principles they enshrined in our Constitution. [Justice] Story's vision that States should not discriminate between Christian sects has as its foundation the principle that government must remain neutral between valid systems of belief. As religious pluralism has expanded, so has our acceptance of what constitutes valid belief systems. The evil of discriminating today against atheists, "polytheists[,] and believers in unconcerned deities," McCreary County, post, at 10 (Scalia, J., dissenting), is in my view a direct descendent of the evil of discriminating among Christian sects.
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The judgment of the Court in this case stands for the proposition that the Constitution permits governmental displays of sacred religious texts. This makes a mockery of the constitutional ideal that government must remain neutral between religion and irreligion. If a State may endorse a particular deity's command to "have no other gods before me," it is difficult to conceive of any textual display that would run afoul of the Establishment Clause. (Citations omitted.)
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Brown said:
I recognize that the requirement that government must remain neutral between religion and irreligion would have seemed foreign to some of the Framers; so too would a requirement of neutrality between Jews and Christians. Fortunately, we are not bound by the Framers' expectations--we are bound by the legal principles they enshrined in our Constitution. [Justice] Story's vision that States should not discriminate between Christian sects has as its foundation the principle that government must remain neutral between valid systems of belief. As religious pluralism has expanded, so has our acceptance of what constitutes valid belief systems. The evil of discriminating today against atheists, "polytheists[,] and believers in unconcerned deities," McCreary County, post, at 10 (Scalia, J., dissenting), is in my view a direct descendent of the evil of discriminating among Christian sects.
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Meanwhile, the others seem to have the view that "all religions are equal, but some are more equal than others." However, even if that is true, I still think it fails, because there is no universally agreed upon "10 commandments," even within the christian sects themselves, much less when considering judaism or islam.

How can the government select the protestant version of the 10C over the catholic version and not claim they are establishing a favored religion?


"[W]e are not bound by the Framers' expectations--we are bound by the legal principles they enshrined in our Constitution" - that's beautiful, man
 
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