The Alabama Supreme Court has set execution dates for two state inmates. Tommy Arthur is scheduled to be executed on Nov. 3. Arthur was convicted of the 1982 murder-for-hire of a Muscle Shoals man. Ronald Bert Smith Jr. is scheduled to be executed on Dec. 8. Smith was convicted in the 1994 robbery and slaying of a Huntsville convenience store…
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…
The Alabama Supreme Court has voided its earlier decision not to recognize a lesbian couple’s adoption that was carried out in another state. The opinion announced Friday falls into line with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued in March that said the Alabama court errored in declaring the adoption held in Georgia invalid. One woman bore three children, and her…
The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission says it has filed ethics charges against Moore, setting up a trial in the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. The SPLC filed the complaint after Moore instructed state court judges to defy a federal court order and enforce the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. They also say he commented on pending cases, among other allegations. Moore…
The Alabama Supreme Court has set a May execution date for a man convicted of shooting a Mobile police officer in the back of the head 30 years ago. The court set the May 12 execution date for Vernon Madison after the Alabama attorney general’s office said Madison had exhausted his appeals. A federal judge in Alabama last week rejected…
