Justice Roy Moore faces removal from bench after ethics complaints

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended on Friday for defying the legalization of marriage equality, AL.com reported.

Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore at the State of the State Address in the State Capitol building in Montgomery, Ala., on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016. “What he’s done this time – tell the state’s 68 probate judges to violate a federal court order – is far worse”, SPLC President Richard Cohen said Friday in a statement. Moore, the complaint says, “took an oath of office to support the United States Constitution…and, as a state judicial officer, is bound by the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation and application of that Constitution”.

“The Alabama Supreme Court has repeatedly slapped down the JIC for wading into legal arguments and has reminded the JIC is it not a court of law”.

Moore responded that the commission had no authority over the matter, saying he would fight the charges and “expected to prevail”.

With Moore now under indictment by the Judicial Inquiry Commission, all three branches of the Alabama government are now facing major scandals, and the three highest positioned men in Alabama face the possibility of removal from office.

The chief justice’s order to probate judges also came even though a federal judge had enjoined probate judges from enforcing Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban, the commission wrote.

But the SPLC was irked by Justice Moore’s religious beliefs and filed a complaint with the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission against him. “That’s not what I said”.

In January, Moore issued an order prohibiting probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples telling them they had a “ministerial duty” to do so.

In a four-page order, he used his authority to reinforce his previous order that barred all probate judges from producing licenses to same-sex couples.

Stay on topic – This helps keep the thread focused on the discussion at hand.

Share with Us – We’d love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article, and smart, constructive criticism. The difference is that Moore is not supposed to be acting like a politician, he is supposed to be acting like an officer of the court and there are few things worse than an officer of the court who is showing open contempt for the law in the manner that Moore has been doing since the Court issued it’s opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges almost a year ago.