Ethics Body Wants Alabama Chief Justice Removed
A judicial ethics panel wants Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore swiftly removed from office for urging the state’s probate judges to defy the federal courts on gay marriage.
Alabama’s Judicial Inquiry Commission wrote Friday that Moore’s unremorseful “flouting” of the rule of law merits the highest possible sanction it can levy against a sitting judge, which is immediate removal from office.
Moore told state probate judges in January that a state injunction against gay marriage was in “full force and effect. His order came six months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry.
Moore asked to dismiss the ethics complaint. He argued that was not telling probate judges what to do, and was only responding to questions about the status of a case. The commission called his explanation “semantic gamesmanship.”
