Lawsuit Seeks to Restore Moore as Alabama Chief Justice
By: Administrative Account | Source: CNSNews.com
November 20, 2003 12:54PM EST

(CNSNews.com) - A federal lawsuit is being filed Thursday on behalf of Alabama voters in an attempt to reverse the removal of Roy Moore as that state's chief justice.

The suit alleges that voters' constitutional rights were violated when the Alabama Court of the Judiciary, an unelected panel, dismissed Moore, an elected state official, over his refusal to move a Ten Commandments display from the rotunda of the state courthouse in Montgomery.

Five registered Alabama voters are the plaintiffs in the suit, which claims the panel's Nov. 13 action violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

"It is deeply troubling to have an appointed, unelected commission remove an elected official from office," Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition (CDC), said Wednesday. "The Court of the Judiciary has overturned an election and crushed the democratic process through its actions."

Mahoney told CNSNews.com that the suit seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the nine members of the judicial panel. If the court takes those actions, Moore would then be reinstated as the state's chief justice, the post to which he was elected with more than 70 percent of the vote during the 2000 election.

"No person should be removed from elected office by an appointed commission, regardless of his political or ideological view," Mahoney said, adding that he believes the panel "has basically overturned an election in a sovereign state."

While acknowledging he thought Moore should not have been removed from the bench, Mahoney said that Alabama officials should have taken another course of action if they wanted to discipline the chief justice.

"They should have chosen impeachment, which would have gone through the legislature and elected officials, not this independent panel," Mahoney noted.

However, Joe Conn, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), told CNSNews.com on Wednesday he believed the lawsuit was "simply an attempt to generate publicity."

Organizations supporting Moore "have tried many different maneuvers to promote their extreme and unusual views of the Constitution," Conn stated, "and they have lost at every turn."

Moore installed the 2.5-ton monument, which portrays the Ten Commandments, various federal and state statutes and quotes from the country's founding fathers, in the courthouse during the summer of 2001. The American Civil Liberties Union and AU later sued Moore, claiming that the display violated the separation of church and state.

After several appeals, a federal judge ordered the monument removed, which Moore refused to do because he considered it "an acknowledgement of God" protected by his First Amendment rights. The display was taken from public view last August, and Moore was suspended from his post in mid-November.

At that time, Barry Lynn, executive director of AU, vowed to "respond quickly" to any attempt to restore the monument. "We beat Moore in court two times," said Lynn. "We will not hesitate to do so again if he persists in violating the Constitution."

However, Bob Jewitt, an Atlanta-based media coordinator for the CDC and similar groups, told CNSNews.com that he believes Moore's struggle has struck a chord with the American people.

"We haven't seen anyone come forward in maybe 50 or 60 years to demand that our Judeo-Christian heritage be kept intact" as Moore has, Jewitt said. "He's brought forward the fact that these courts are out of control, that judges are legislating from the bench."

Moore "has really done a tremendous job" in making those two points, "even if he doesn't do anything else," Jewitt added.

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