Even before the allegations about his personal conduct came to light, Mr. Moore’s judicial record on matters of sexual abuse was a point of contention in the race. During the Republican Senate primary, Mr. Strange ran television commercials attacking Mr. Moore for his vote in a case involving the sexual assault of a child.
Democrats alleged a deeper pattern of leniency in Mr. Moore’s judicial decisions involving sexual predation, pointing to several cases in which the former judge expressed skepticism of young women making allegations of sexual abuse.
In a 2015 case involving a man, David Pittman, who pleaded guilty to raping an underage girl, Mr. Moore wrote in a dissenting opinion that Mr. Pittman should have been allowed to introduce evidence showing his alleged victim’s parents “suspected her of sexual activity,” because it could be relevant to discerning her “alleged motive” in claiming she had been assaulted.
And in a 2014 case, involving a man convicted of abusing two underage girls, Mr. Moore wrote in a dissenting opinion that the man, Sherman Tate, should have had the chance in court to demonstrate that his accusers were romantically involved with each other. Mr. Moore wrote that connection “could be relevant to the victims’ alleged bias against Tate.”
