JUDGE SUSPENDED FOR TERM IN ALA.
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was removed from the bench Friday for defying the U.S. Supreme Court on gay marriage, more than a decade after he was ousted for disobeying a federal order to take down a 2 ½-ton monument to the Ten Commandments. The nine-member Alabama Court of the Judiciary suspended Moore without pay for the remainder of his term.
While the court stopped short of outright removing him as they did in 2003, the punishment has the same effect, ending his rule as Alabama’s top jurist.
The judiciary court ruled that Moore defied law already clearly settled by the high court’s Obergefell vs. Hodges ruling when he told Alabama’s probate judges six months later that they were still bound by a 2015 state court order to deny marriage licenses to gays and lesbians. They said Moore also flouted a federal judge’s order that enjoined the judges from enforcing Alabama’s same sex marriage ban after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision. The 50-page decision indicated that a majority of justices wanted to completely remove Moore — not just suspend him without pay — but they lacked unanimity. The Associated Press