MONTGOMERY, Ala. — In what Chief Justice Roy Moore’s legal counsel called a “brazen move,” the Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) of Alabama has hired an attorney from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to prosecute its charges against the Chief Justice.
Former SPLC Legal Director John Carroll will prosecute the case. The SPLC has been among the organizations at the forefront of the effort to remove Moore from the state’s high court. The group’s current president says Moore “has disgraced his office for far too long” and “should be kicked out of office for the good of the state.”
The SPLC was also heavily involved in pushing for Moore to be removed from the Court nine years ago when he defied a federal court order and refused to remove a statue of the Ten Commandments from the state judicial building.
“I have almost no words for this corrupt and unjust system,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, which represents Chief Justice Moore. “We have said that the charges are politically motivated and that the JIC violated its own rules of confidentiality. You would think that the JIC would be astute enough to at least avoid an appearance of bias, but obviously the JIC does not care. This is a brazen act that calls into question the entire JIC process.”
Chief Justice Moore is for the second time facing the possibility of being removed from office after the JIC suspended him for “flagrantly disregard(ing) and abus(ing) his authority” with respect to the issue of same sex marriage.
After a federal court struck down Alabama’s gay marriage ban, Moore instructed probate judges around the state to ignore the court’s order and continue upholding the Alabama Constitution, which affirms the traditional definition of marriage. Most probate judges around the state are now issuing same sex marriage licenses, while a handful have opted to stop issuing marriage licenses all together, rather than violate their conscience.
Moore shot back that the commission has “chosen to listen to people like Ambrosia Starling, a professed transvestite, and other gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals, as well as organizations which support their agenda.”
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Mr. Staver, Moore’s attorney, said their position is that the United States Supreme Court is the only body that can referee disputes between state and federal courts, not the Judicial Inquiry Commission, an appointed oversight panel of judges and lawyers.
“The Judicial Inquiry Commission has no jurisdiction to resolve legal disputes,” he said, “and the complaint is solely focused on a legal dispute between federal and state courts.”
Moore also contends that his order to the probate judges did not run afoul of the federal court order, because Alabama was not one of the states involved in that case.
“This is about legalism,” he said. “There is nothing in writing that you will find that I told anybody to disobey a federal court order.”
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