Alabama justice off bench for defying feds on gay marriage

"We are here 13 years later because the Chief Justice learned nothing from that first removal". This means the court could not unanimously decide to kick Moore off the Alabama Supreme Court. Due to his age, Moore is not able to run for re-election.

Canon 3A (6) - He failed to abstain from public comment about a pending proceeding in his own court.

"The result was confusion in marriage license offices throughout Alabama". The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) issued that ruling declaring same-sex marriage legal nationwide on June 26, 2015. "He urged defiance, not compliance", Pate said. They continued to jeer and throughout his closing argument, and through John Carroll's.

Moore was called before the Court of the Judiciary for an order he issued to state probate judges regarding same-sex marriage. Moore founded the organization. It is an effort to silence by threat of removal a liberal agenda. "That is all I did", Moore testified.

Both times, Moore's actions made him a hero to evangelicals, enraged liberals and caught the attention of the state judicial commission. "In that administrative order, I wasn't telling them to do anything". The 50-page decision indicated that a majority of justices wanted to formally bar Moore from ever being chief judge - not just suspend him without pay - but they didn't have the unanimous agreement. Moore's attorneys will appeal this decision. "The COJ lacked the unanimous votes to remove the Chief, so the majority instead chose to ignore the law and the rules". An anyone remember a case that Liberty Counsel ever won? Despite the controversy, he was reelected to Supreme Court Justice in 2012.

Alabama law prohibits anyone 70 and older from being elected or appointed as a judge.

This is not the only time that Moore's religious beliefs trickled into his job as a judge.

Moore was previously removed from the bench in 2003 for refusing to carry out a federal order to remove a statue of the Ten Commandments from the state Supreme Court.

Moore's term expires in 2019 with the election of a new chief justice in 2018.

The SPLC also brought the 2003 complaint against Moore. There were professionals in that courtroom-doctors, lawyers, judges, and more who all agreed that Chief Justice Moore was completely correct. It's something that he never seemed to understand.

"My parting words are good riddance to the Ayatollah of Alabama", Cohen said.

Moore has twice sought the GOP nomination for Alabama governor.

The ethics court found him guilty of all six charges related to his decisions to halt same-sex marriages in Alabama.

"At the outset, this court emphasizes that this case is concerned only with alleged violations of the Canons of Judicial Ethics", the COJ said.

Moore was charged with violating judicial ethics for trying to block enforcement of the 2015 Obergefell ruling. In it, he wrote that "it is ordered and instructed" that Alabama probate judges "have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license" to a same-sex couples. "It was merely a status report".

At the trial, Staver argued that Moore's email to the probate judges wasn't an order, but rather a "status update" on the conflict between the federal court ruling and state court rulings.

"This was a matter that was clearly in law", Moore said during the trial.