It was the Alabama Supreme Court’s inability to decide a case following the U.S. Supreme Court’s creation of same-sex “marriage” that prompted its chief justice, Roy Moore, to issue a statement last January that the justices continued to deliberate.
He just wanted to reassure the public and the state’s judiciary that the issue had not been forgotten, nor had it been resolved.
Moore submitted an affidavit regarding the dispute because it is his order from last January that is the focus of a series of complaints filed against him in the state’s Court of the Judiciary. He’s suspended from his duties until the dispute is resolved.
The fight stems from a dispute that was pending before the state court before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled. The state case concerned same-sex “marriage,” and the court had told those issuing marriage licenses to issue them only to man-and-woman couples, as the state constitution and its law provided.
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 opinion in June 2015, the Alabama Supreme Court invited the parties in its pending case, concerning the Alabama Policy Institute, “to address the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision on this court’s existing orders.”
Later, 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.
Moore previously said, “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.’”
But now the six complaints pending against him concern that order, and his critics have contended he was defying the federal court system with the statement.
Nonsense, Chief Justice Moore wrote in an affidavit submitted to the JIC in support of his motion to dismiss the complaints.
He explained that the internal communications inside the court usually are not made public, but he was in this case so people could understand his Jan. 6, 2016, order.
“While the JIC contends that my motivation to issue the administrative order was to defy the federal courts, the following excerpts from my memoranda to the court … indicate that I strongly encouraged my colleagues to dispel the existing concern and uncertainty by promptly addressing the question.”
He notes that on Sept. 2, 2015, he urged his fellow judges to “make a decision in this case.”
He explained, “one way or the other: to acquiesce in Obergefell and retreat from our March orders or reject Obergefell and maintain our orders in place,” he told his fellow judges.
“Any decision is better than no decision at all,” he wrote. “The uncertainty facing the probate judges [those who issue marriage licenses in the state] is enormous. … They need guidance from us on this court’s view…”
A month later, he repeated his plea.
“We have a duty to decide the cases before us,” he wrote. “We are coming under increasing scrutiny for our failure to act.”
He acted alone in January, although he did not express a decision, to reassure the public, he said.
Then in February, the public pressure grew, several complaints were filed with the JIC over the judges’ collective failure to release a conclusion, but the JIC almost immediately dismissed those complaints.
A week later, the court did rule, issuing a one-sentence order that “all pending motions and petitions are dismissed.”
It also issued a certificate of judge leaving its original instructions to probate judges undisturbed.
“The administrative order of Jan. 6, 2016, without criticizing the court or its delay, informed the probate judges that the court ‘continues to deliberate’ and that the API orders thus remained in effect,” Moore argued.
WND reported last month when a motion was filed in the JIC to dismiss the complaints.
It argued that the commission that issued the charges has no authority over administrative orders in 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.
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 at the time. “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.”
The motion pointed 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, critics contend.
WND had just reported 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 Mat Staver.
Judge Roy Moore
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 worker for SPLC to build its case against Moore.
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/07/27/chief-justice-i-tried-to-get-court-to-decide-marriage-case/
from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/chief-justice-i-tried-to-get-court-to-decide-marriage-case/
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