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Ten Commandments judge suspended from the bench

Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended from the bench Friday for defying a federal court order to remove a monument graven with the Ten Commandments that he had installed in the Alabama Supreme Court building.

Moore, who used the Ten Commandments issue to rise from obscurity in rural Alabama to the highest judgeship in the state, will face a trial by the state Court of the Judiciary, which ordered the suspension Friday and will decide whether Moore should lose his job permanently.

Meanwhile, the titanic slab of granite remained in the rotunda and continued to be a rallying point for hundreds of evangelical Christians.

Some marched with Bibles, some brandished cardboard cutouts of the Ten Commandments tablets and others sang out, "I shall not be moved!"

Moore made no public appearances Friday. But in a television interview before his suspension was announced, he said, "My dispute is with the federal courts who have intruded into state affairs, and we are taking this matter to the US Supreme Court."

The US Supreme Court, however, has already rejected one of his appeals and legal analysts said they did not expect it to side with Moore.

His critics praised the suspension.

"It's perfectly appropriate because he openly and flagrantly violated a federal court order," said Morris Dees, chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the civil liberties groups that argued that Moore had violated constitutional guarantees of the separation of church and state. "There's no question about it. This is the beginning of the end."

Not so, said others who predicted that the suspension would add to the swelling popularity of Moore, a Republican elected to the post. "This will only increase his martyrdom," William Stewart, a political science professor at the University of Alabama, said. "It shows how far he is willing to go for the cause."

Moore was suspended with pay, starting Friday, pending the outcome of a trial before the Court of the Judiciary, which hears complaints on ethical lapses and misconduct in office.

The charge stems from an ethics complaint that Moore failed to "observe high standards of conduct" and "respect and comply with the law." The last time the court removed a judge was April 1999. Moore has 30 days to respond officially.

Moore ran afoul of the law by refusing to move the monument, known by some as Roy's Rock, by a midnight Wednesday deadline set by US District Judge Myron Thompson.

Thompson threatened to fine Moore US$5,000 for every day the monument remained in public view. Since Moore was being sued in his official capacity, the state of Alabama, which is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, was on the hook.

On Wednesday, the eight associates justices of the state Supreme Court voted unanimously to overrule Moore and ordered the removal of the monument.

On Friday, before the suspension was announced, Thompson decided to withhold fines or a contempt of court finding if the monument was moved within a week or so, said Ayesha Khan, legal director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which had joined in the suit against Moore.

Moore has said he will not try to block the removal of the monument.

Officials have been cautious about provoking the increasing number of Moore's supporters who have turned the courthouse steps into a campground, and a revival. On Friday, many huddled under the gargantuan pillars of the courthouse singing hymns and praying.

In the past, Moore has said that when he hung a rosewood plaque of the Ten Commandments above his bench in Gadsden, Alabama, 11 years ago, he was not looking for a crusade, but a decoration.

Observers say Moore's genius is the way he framed the issue.

"He made it sound like he stood for God, and everybody who opposed him was against God," said the historian Shelby Foote. "For a lot of people with simple minds, that makes perfect sense. And once he started grabbing headlines, he just didn't want to let go."
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