Alabama's Top Judge Defiant on Commandments' Display

This is a monument inside the courthouse, right?

How is it different then having a hanging picture of the 10 commandments on the wall.

Don't we have better things to worry about?

DD

 

Max, the order says to take it down. He's got to take it down. There's no allowance for "massive size", that makes no difference when complying with a court order.

There is no irreperable harm in complying with it, if he eventually wins his case, he puts it back up, which is why his emergency motion was denied.

It wasn't just denied after much debate and careful consideration, mind you, this guy filed his papers around noon and by 3 o clock it was denied without opinion.

This is what he wrote for his grounds for the emergency stay, it was necessary because it would "permit the Chief Justice to fulfill the campaign promise that he made to the citizens of Alabama to restore the moral foundation of law.''

That's just absurd as far as it being propounded as a legal argument. Many judges I know would sanction you for pulling crap like that when you know better.

 

I wonder why BamaSlammer hasn't appeared to defend this wonderful example of the judiciary in his beloved state.

 

I feel like MadMax in that I don't feel it should be a "we can have it but you can't" thing. I don't think it should be there as well as currency, the Supreme Court, etc.

 

Sam...it's a 5,300 pound granite monument!!! You don't take it down and put it back up with ease or without expense...at the taxpayers' expense, I might add.

Yes...when issues are on appeal you don't necessarily get substantive relief. If I win a case for a client and get a judgment for $1,000,000...my client doesn't get the money while we're waiting on a final appeal.

I'm also guessing that wasn't his only argument, Sam. Have you read his brief? I haven't, but you know as well as I do that's not his only argument.

As for the emergency motion...I believe it was decided by ONE justice...how much deliberation or debate is needed for that?

Apparently the other members of the Alabama Supreme Court are talking of moving the monument to a more private location until the case is finally decided.

 

fair enough...remove any mention of God from anything. remove the phrase "blessings of liberty" from the Constitution...remove the endowed by our Creator stuff from the Declaration of Independence...because ultimately that stuff gets taught in schools. and we should take it off our currency...we should remove the prayer before Congress convenes...we should stop saying, "God save the Court."

i find that to be really sad, though.

 

Is he using taxpayer money to fight this?

 

good question...i don't know.

 

Damn, that was quick.

 

About the taxpayers' expense - if I'm not mistaken, Justice Moore paid for both the statue and its installation. I think I read it in the Post the other day. It was installed in the middle of the night when nobody was around (I forget the reason for the stealth).

There's no way that taxpayers would have to fund some monster statue like that. It's Moore's baby, and he can put it in his office, just not out in the open because it's reflective of the entire court itself.

I think if the Federal court said move it, he has to pay to remove it or else face the consequences (fines).

 

oops, I was mistaken about the overnight installation bit. But it is HIS monument that he paid for. A bit about the installation from the Washingotn Post, Aug. 15th:

"Moore had the Ten Commandments monument installed in the rotunda of the state judicial building on the night of July 31, 2001. The installation was filmed by Coral Ridge Ministries, an evangelical Christian media organization that has used proceeds from the sale of the film to pay Moore's legal expenses.

Thompson ruled last November that the installation of the monument in the rotunda, where it is visible to all visitors to the judicial building, violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. A three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit unanimously affirmed Thompson's ruling last month. "

IN an article on WSFA 12's (Birmigham, AL) website, it says that Moore paid for the monument itself. THe only mention of taxpayers dollars I've seen are in the costs of the court proceedings surrounding its removal.

 

Max, I don't know how many times you've tried to defy a court order in your life, but "it's real heavy and might be expensive to do" doesn't get you to first base in front of any judge in America, or any country that I know. Instead, it would get you held in contempt and eventually thrown in jail.

The legal standard is clear, and has been for a long time. Max. Emergency motions are for stuff like death penalty cases, that's irreperable harm, or other things that you can't undo once they are done.

I did read other excerpts of his ridiculous brief max, and it is a freaking joke. His lawyer, Herb Titus, is best known for being general counsel to the "Gun Owners of America"-- an organization that the NRA tries to distance itself from because they are too extreme.

I don't know whether it was decided by Kennedy or the whole court. I heard it was the whole court. Regardless, he doesn't have a legal leg to stand on, and he knows it.

My god, what if the Florida Supreme Court refused to implement the US Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, and instead issued a court order that said the florida recount must continue? As an attorney and as a judge, he knows better than to act like this.

 

You missed my point entirely, THE COUNSTITUTION--i.e. The law of the land, says that "thou shall not steal and thou shall not kill w/o the King James spin...He has used his defiance as a sping-board for publicity and advancing his agenda to make sure all who pass through the court house doors will be judged by mystical stone tablets passed down from God thousands of years ago. And ya know what? Sometimes I DO covet my neigbors wife (can't help but notice a hot MILF...), are my thoughts not my own? Do I need a court to use it's power to judge me through religious text? Is the Counstitution not good enough?

 

Well, apparently the rest of the Alabama Supreme Court put together was able to scrounge up the half a brain it took to figure out that it was not a good idea to pretend that federal courts have no jurisdiction over the state of ALabama, and that they were bound to follow the order regardless of what they thought about it:


Justices order removal of Ten Commandments monument
Thursday, August 21, 2003 Posted: 11:48 AM EDT (1548 GMT)




MONTGOMERY, Alabama (CNN) -- Alabama's state Supreme Court justices overruled their chief justice on Thursday and ordered that a Ten Commandments monument be removed from its public site in the Alabama Judicial Building.

The senior associate justice, Gorman Houston, said the eight associate justices instructed the building's manager to "take all steps necessary to comply ... as soon as practicable," according to a report from The Associated Press.

The associate justices wrote that they are "bound by solemn oath to follow the law, whether they agree or disagree with it," the AP reported.

A federal judge had ruled the monument violates the constitution's ban on government establishment of religion and must be removed from its public place in the rotunda. He had set Thursday as his deadline, but Moore said he would not move it.

The move by the justices, who are allowed to overrule directives by the chief justice, came after the monument had been temporarily walled off earlier Thursday by screens from public view.

The Associated Press reported that Moore's spokesman, Tom Parker, said Moore was out of town for a family funeral but decided to return to Montgomery when he learned the monument had been walled from public view.

But attorney Ayesha Khan, an attorney for the plaintiffs fighting to get the monument removed, said the associate justices' decision "just shows what an extremist Roy Moore is, than all eight of the other justices are refusing to stand with him," according to the AP.

On Wednesday Moore vowed to keep the monument in the rotunda of the state building, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to become involved in the case after it rejected Moore's emergency plea for a stay of the federal judge's order to remove the statue.

"The U.S. Supreme Court denial of a stay today will not deter me from continuing to fight for the right of our state to acknowledge God as the moral foundation of our law," Moore said in a statement.

Moore said he still has pending at the Supreme Court a writ of mandamus and prohibition, seeking to stop the order to remove the monument.

Before Thursday's action by the justices, Alabama State Attorney General Bill Pryor had said officials were prepared to remove the 3-foot-tall granite monument "very soon."

The monument was ordered removed from the judicial building by the end of the day Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson of Montgomery, or else the state would face $5,000 per day in fines. Thompson was not expected to take action before Friday, according to the AP. He has threatened $5,000-a-day fines against the state if his deadline was ignored. In his ruling, Thompson said the monument violates the constitutional ban on promotion of religion.


Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore
Attorneys who sued had said they expected to file a contempt of court petition against Moore that Thompson may consider in a conference call Friday, setting the stage for fines.

Moore accused Thompson of "abuse of power," "callous disregard to the people of this state" and "threatening to drain huge amounts of public funds from the state of Alabama" because of the cost of the ongoing legal battle.

Wednesday evening, more than two dozen protesters supporting Moore were arrested in the rotunda, after they refused police orders to disperse from the monument.

The case stemmed from a lawsuit filed in October 2001 by three organizations on behalf of three Alabama lawyers who often had business at the judicial building and said the monument offended them. Thompson ruled in their favor last year.

Moore appealed the decision, but in July the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled unanimously that Moore violated the constitutional separation of church and state by installing the monument.

The court's ruling compared Moore to segregationist Southern governors of the past who refused to integrate college campuses even after federal court orders to do so -- and predicted that if Moore appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court he would lose.

Moore told CNN's "NewsNight with Aaron Brown" that any comparison to George Wallace, the four-term Alabama governor who opposed integration of Alabama public schools, is unfounded.

"Wallace stood in the doorway to keep people out," Moore said. "We're trying to keep God in. Wallace stood for division. We're standing for unity."

Moore said he would take on other state officials who stand by Thompson's decision. "Each of them has also taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States."

 

Sam...you're just flat out wrong. I don't know what else to say. Emergency motions are not reserved for death penalty cases...not at all. I have an emergency motion pending before a federal court right now as we speak and it's a private property issue.

The Florida issue is entirely different..you're comparing apples to oranges. The US Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore was a FINAL FREAKING DECISION! THERE IS NO FINAL DECISION HERE...IT IS STILL ON APPEAL ON THE VERY MERITS OF THE CASE!!.

 

huh??? how is any of this related?? you're right about one thing...i missed your point...i continue to miss it.

 

To me this is just another example of how obsessing over the details of a somewhat trivial fact pattern has clouded Americans' minds so much that the federal government has again seized an opportunity to further erode any notion of states' rights. This should be a state matter, as far as I can see, and once again, the state's voice is completely overrun by a soulless, all-powerful federal government.

 

that prints "in God we trust" on its currency...that introduces its own highest court with the phrase, "God save the Court..." and on and on and on. it's hypocrisy at best.

 

Well Max, since you put it in all caps, you must be right.

If I'm flat out wrong, why did it take the supreme court 2 hours , if that, to come out with the same decision? I didn't say it was only reserved for death penalty cases, I was using that as an example of irreperable harm. Moving a statue from a public area to a private area, even if that statue is real heavy, is not irreperable harm. A first year law student knows that.

Even though you put it in all caps, the FLorida analogy is valid. There WAS a TRO issued in the case prior to the final decision, stopping the recount. So what if the trial judge, or the county election commissioner of the board of elections decided that he didn't agree with it and went ahead with the recount? That's what Moore was going to do until the rest of the justices overruled him today.

Second, technically speaking, the d-court decision was, legally speaking, a "final" decision. As you know, that's the reason why he was ablle to appeal it in the first place. And he's got to comply with it unless he gets a stay. He can go around filing frivolous motions all he wants about how he has to do the work of god, but at the end of the day he's got to comply with it, and he is aware of such.

 

Sam --

Whatever. Fine. I completely disagree with virtually everything you posted. I've won injunctions before with far less in the way of irreparable harm than we are talking about here. Far less. I've won them on behalf of developers stopping homeowners from pouring driveways in their yards when that conflicts with homeowners' association agreements...I would argue that's every bit comparable to this in moving a 5000+ pound monument back and forth.

And no...the district court decision on the merits was not final. Even a pre-law student knows that district court decisions can be brought to a higher court.

The only thing I agree with is your assessment on the Florida issue...we were talking about two separate things...I assumed you meant the final SCOTUS decision in that case...my bad. Of course, I would argue the import of that decision was a tad more significant than this one...and if I remember right...didn't they keep on counting, anyway??

Having said all that...the Alabama Supreme Court took care of the issue. We'll see if a higher court even agrees to hear the case on its merits.