In its ethics case against Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, state officials have selected a prosecutor who once served as legal director of one of the organizations that filed the charges, prompting a defense lawyer to condemn the move as symptomatic of a “corrupt and unjust system.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center was among the parties that filed complaints against Moore’s administrative order to state judges to uphold Alabama’s legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman after a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court majority ruled Americans have a constitutional right to “gay marriage.”
Now the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission has appointed John Carroll, a professor of law at Samford University in Alabama and former SPLC legal director, as the prosecutor in the case against Moore.
Moore’s critics claimed his order violated ethics rules, and the state Judicial Inquiry Commission issued six charges against the chief justice in the state’s Court of the Judiciary.
Now, Liberty Counsel, which is defending Moore, has revealed that the court has appointed a former SPLC executive to prosecute a case that began with the SPLC’s complaint against Moore.
“I have almost no words for this corrupt and unjust system,” Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel founder and chairman, said in a statement Thursday.
“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 obvious the JIC does not care. This is a brazen act that calls into question the entire JIC process.”
Judicial Inquiry Commission staff member Rosa Davis told WND that the commission doesn’t comment on such matters.
But she enthusiastically defended Carroll, confirming to WND that he formerly worked for SPLC.
She argued he later became a law school professor, dean of a law school and a magistrate judge.
The SPLC advocacy by Carroll, Davis told WND, was “32 years ago.”
She contended the “facts of his career since of that time speak for themselves.”
On his Samford University bio page, however, Carroll boasts of his experience with SPLC as its legal director.
The page says he teaches, or is interested in, mediation, evidence, trial practice, ethics and e-discovery.
It states: “Judge Carroll is a frequent lecturer and panel member at national and local seminars on the subject of the discovery of electronically stored information, mediation, ethics and other topics relating to federal courts. He was the reporter to the committees of the Uniform Law Commission that drafted the Uniform Rules Relating to the Discovery of Electronically Stored information and the Uniform Asset Preservation Order Act. He was also a member of the Uniform Law Commission committee that drafted amendments to the Uniform Athlete Agents Act. He is currently a member of a committee drafting a model veterans court act and a committee judging a model equal rights act.”
Liberty Counsel pointed out that when the order from the Alabama Supreme Court was issued regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage decision, Carroll told local reporters the state court was within its rights.
“The travesty of the politically motivated charges by the JIC against Chief Justice Roy Moore have become even clearer with the appointment by the JIC of a former legal director of the same organization that filed the charges. This is a miscarriage of justice of the highest sort,” said Staver.
SPLC routinely blasts people and organizations who do not agree with its social agenda as “haters” and was linked in federal court to the gun attack several years ago at the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington, D.C..
“By falsely and recklessly labeling Christian ministries as ‘hate groups,’ the SPLC is directly responsible for the first conviction of a man who intended to commit mass murder targeted against a policy organization in Washington, D.C.,” Liberty Counsel has said.
“On August 15, 2012, Floyd Corkins went to the Family Research Council with a gun and a bag filled with ammunition and Chick-fil-A sandwiches. His stated purpose was to kill as many employees of the Family Research Council as possible and then to smear Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces (because the founder of the food chain said he believed in marriage as a man and a woman). Fortunately, Mr. Corkins was stopped by the security guard, who was shot in the process. Corkins is now serving time in prison. Mr. Corkins admitted to the court that he learned of the Family Research Council by reading the SPLC’s hate map,” LC reported.
SPLC also attacked GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson with its “hate” label.
Just days ago, the executive committee of the Alabama Republican Party sided with Moore, urging state officials to drop their claims against him.
Moore has argued, LC said, “that the JIC has exceeded its jurisdiction in bringing these charges against him.”
“The charges stem from the chief justice’s January 2016 administrative order, which essentially said that the 2015 orders of the Alabama Supreme Court remained in effect until such time as the court said otherwise, and that the Alabama Supreme Court was reviewing the matter and would render an opinion.”
The nearly 300-page complaint against Moore, filed by the state Judicial Inquiry Commission and signed by Chairman Billy Bedsole, resulted in the chief justice’s immediate suspension from his position with pay.
Bedsole complains that Moore, in deciding the state law had authority over the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage decision, “flagrantly disregarded a fundamental constitutional right guaranteed in all states, as declared by the United States Court (sic).”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/alabama-stacks-deck-against-chief-justice-roy-moore/
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