Alabama’s Court of the Judiciary will probably announce this afternoon whether Roy Moore will get to keep his job. The ethics panel will convene at Noon eastern and is scheduled to announce its findings after having heard arguments from both sides yesterday.
In order to remove Moore from the state Supreme Court, the panel would have to agree unanimously, which may prove difficult. The Court of the Judiciary may, however, impose other penalties that are less serious.
Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor continued to insist that expelling Moore from the bench was the only appropriate response to Moore’s decision to ignore a federal court order.
“This case raises a fundamental question, what does it mean to have a government of laws and not of men?” Pryor said. He added, “This court must provide the answer that no citizen — rich or poor, powerful or weak — is above the law.”
Moore’s legal team, meanwhile, argued that federal courts lack the authority to rule on state matters and that the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedent on church-state cases, used in deciding the legality of Moore’s Ten Commandments monument, were wrong because they failed to acknowledge God as the source of American law.
Funny, that last point sounds similar to the one made by the Taliban when it took over Afghanistan.
Complicating matters, Moore hinted that he could start this fight over again if the Court of the Judiciary rules in his favor. Asked if he would return his granite Commandments statue to its previous location, Moore told the court, “I have not decided, but I will not leave it in a closet.”
I’ll let you know what happens.