Alabama justice ‘urged defiance, not compliance’ on marriage
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore should be removed from office for defying the U.S. Supreme Court on same-sex marriage, a lawyer for a disciplinary commission argued on Wednesday.
R. Ashby Pate, a lawyer for the Judicial Inquiry Commission, said marriage equality was settled law in all 50 states when Moore told Alabama’s 68 probate judges in January that they remained bound by his court’s order to refuse the licenses to same-sex couples.
The outspoken Republican jurist could be removed from office for the second time in 13 years if found to have violated the state’s canons of judicial ethics.
Moore did acknowledge in a testy cross-examination, however, that he told probate judges to follow the very same state court order that a federal judge specifically said they could no longer enforce.
The house speaker was removed from office this summer for ethics violations, and a legislative committee will decide if evidence supports impeaching Gov. Robert Bentley after he was accused of having an affair with a top staffer.