Down, but not out: Ousted Alabama judge mulls future
By Bill Schneider
CNN Political Unit
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Ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore listens Thursday an an ethics panel kicks him off the bench.
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Roy Moore is removed as Alabama's chief justice for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments statue.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Judge Roy Moore of Alabama has made the Ten Commandments a political career.
The move cost him his job, but it also endeared him to politically active conservatives, and his high-profile showdown with a state judicial ethics panel wins him the political Play of the Week.
In 1995, Moore was sued by a civil liberties group for displaying a homemade plaque of the Ten Commandments in his circuit courtroom. He became "the Ten Commandments judge'' and got elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.
Two years ago, Moore installed a granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the court rotunda. This August, a federal court ordered Moore to remove it. He refused saying, "I did not obey the edict of a federal judge who said we could not acknowledge God."
This week, Moore stood trial for judicial misconduct.
The court ruled on Thursday, kicking Moore off the bench and saying he had placed himself above the law.
"This court hereby orders that Roy S. Moore be removed from his position as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama," said Judge William Thompson, head of the state's ethics panel.
Moore's supporters see him as a martyr persecuted for his religious beliefs.
"It's very wrong for a public official to be excluded from his office because of his religious beliefs and the acknowledgment of God," Moore told CNN.
His critics had a different view.
"He simply decided that he would defy the law and when you're the chief justice of the state, that's not one of your options," Richard Cohen, a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the groups that sued Moore over the monument.
The religious right usually takes up highly divisive causes, like abortion and gay rights. But how many Americans are offended by the Ten Commandments?
Seventy-six percent of Alabamans support putting the Ten Commandments on display on government property.
So do 77 percent of all Americans. Could Moore have political plans?
"He'll be back as a United States senator, or he's back as chief justice because he can run again. Or he'll be back as governor," said Terry Butts, an attorney for Moore.
Moore could challenge Gov. Bob Riley in the GOP primary in 2006.
Remember Riley? He sponsored a tax hike plan that Alabama voters soundly defeated in September.
"I will be making an announcement next week which could alter the course of this country," Moore declared on Thursday.
That's next week. This week, he gets the political Play of the Week.
Moore deliberately sought the showdown and invited media attention. He wanted his trial held in a sports arena with thousands of spectators witnessing his martyrdom.
