Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore
A motion has been filed with the Alabama Court of the Judiciary calling for the dismissal of counts filed against Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, arguing the state commission that issued the charges has no authority over administrative orders concerning the court system.
The motion was filed by Liberty Counsel, which is representing the chief justice against what has been described as a politically motivated attack sparked by a complaint from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which once outrageously put retired surgeon Dr. Ben Carson on its “haters” list and has been linked to domestic terror in a federal court case.
The charges filed by the Judicial Inquiry Commission, the JIC, focus on Moore’s administrative order to judges in January to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that “same-sex marriage” is a constitutional right.
Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, argued the administrative order expressly said Moore “could not provide guidance to the probate judges because the matter was pending before the Alabama Supreme Court.”
“The JIC apparently wanted the chief justice to openly disobey the Alabama Supreme Court and to take matters into his own hands,” Staver said. “The JIC’s position is astounding and clearly wrong. It is no wonder why the JIC has no jurisdiction to render legal decisions. When it veers into this forbidden realm, it makes no sense.”
Staver contended the JIC “lacked jurisdiction to issue the charges because they all deal with a legal interpretation that is beyond its authority. We have asked that these baseless charges be dismissed.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 opinion in June 2015, the Alabama Supreme Court invited the parties in the Alabama Policy Institute case “to address the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision on this court’s existing orders.”
In his January order, Moore stated: “I am not at liberty to provide any guidance to Alabama probate judges on the effect of Obergefell on the existing orders of the Alabama Supreme Court. That issue remains before the entire court which continues to deliberate on the matter.”
Later, that court issued a certificate of judgment regarding its 2015 orders.
The motion to dismiss explained: “The JIC’s complaint is premised upon the false proposition that in his administrative order … the chief justice defied the federal courts. The purpose of that order, however, was to instruct the probate judges about the status of the state-court injunction that had first been imposed upon them in March 2015 and that the June 29, 2015, order of the Alabama Supreme Court had continued in effect post-Obergefell pending further briefing.
“The sole purpose of the administrative order in question was to inform the probate judges that six months after the briefing order, the court still remained in deliberation on the matter and that, therefore, the API orders continued in effect pending ‘further decision.’”
The JIC, the motion said, couldn’t tolerate orderly procedures and instead “expressed its displeasure with such … by filing an ethical complaint against the chief justice for respecting the authority of the Alabama Supreme Court to modify its own orders and for recognizing that those orders remained in effect until so modified.”
In fact, the motion points out to the JIC that the Alabama Constitution “creates the JIC and specifies its limited jurisdiction and powers.”
“The nine-member JIC has ‘authority to conduct investigations’ concerning any Alabama judge and has the ability to file ethical charges.”
But all six of the JIC charges “arise from a single administrative order” which is reviewable, according to Alabama Code, only “by the justices of the Alabama Supreme Court.”
The state has “no provision for any other body to review the validity of those orders.”
The actual charges, however, are part of a larger offensive by SPLC and JIC against conservative justices in Alabama.
WND reported this week that Justice Tom Parker had sued because SPLC filed a complaint with the JIC in an attempt to restrict his free speech, which is protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Moore, too, sued the JIC earlier over violations of his constitutional rights.
The cases suggested SPLC, which smeared Carson by putting him on its “thoroughly disgusting list of ‘haters,’” is working with the JIC to injure the conservatives.
SPLC and the JIC are attempting “to intimidate, silence, and punish Justice Parker for his originalist judicial philosophy and protected speech,” the legal action explains.
“Justice Parker has a constitutional right to speak out on the case so long as he is not presently presiding over it. We know have seen a disturbing pattern of the JIC doing the bidding of the Southern Poverty Law Center and filing politically motivated charges against Alabama Supreme Court justices in order to remove them from the bench. It is time to put a stop to this free speech violation and the automatic removal provision,” said Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver.
SPLC’s earlier attack on Carson was described in a commentary by Joseph Farah, founder and editor of WND.
“Apparently, the racketeering outfit that poses as a ‘progressive’ civil liberties group realized it had crossed a bridge too far in its smear efforts against, quite possibly, the most respected black leader in America (and, yes, I include Barack Obama and all members of his administration and frequent White House visitors such as Al Sharpton),” he wrote.
“The group’s stock-in-trade is raising hundreds of millions of dollars through fanning the flames of phantom threats posed almost exclusively by those who love America and its Constitution. The others are a collection of actual scum-of-the-earth racists, neo-Nazis and other certifiable lunatics who, through guilt by association, are intended to reflect badly on the liberty proponents and Christians and Jews on the list, who are the SPLC’s real targets.”
He noted SPLC posted Carson on its hate list then removed him.
“Think about how shameless SPLC really is: [retired Lt. Gen. Jerry] Boykin and [Tony] Perkins [both now with the Family Research Council] are still on the list despite the fact that the group inspired a domestic terrorist and would-be mass murderer to conduct an armed attack on their Family Research Council years ago with the intent of shooting and killing every single employee and leaving a Chik-fil-A sandwich on their corpses. That guy, by the way, now serving time in an attack that resulted in a non-fatal bullet wound to FRC’s black security guard, never made it to the SPLC’s ‘hate’ list, despite getting his marching orders from the group,” Farah wrote.
Moore sued in federal court, contending that the state process for handling, hearing, responding to and adjudicating complaints against him violates his constitutional rights.
He’s asking the federal court to derail the process that state officials are pursuing, seeking damages and immediate reinstatement.
“The immediate and automatic disqualification of Chief Justice Moore from the office of chief justice has prevented him from serving the entire term of his elected office, even though he has not been tried on the [Judicial Inquiry Commission] charges, let alone convicted in the [Court of the Judiciary],” the recent lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama states.
The JIC went so far as to hire a former SPLC employee to build its case against Moore.
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/alabama-chief-justice-roy-moore-fights-back/
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