Roy Moore

The so-called "Ten Commandments" judge, as Circuit Judge and later as Chief Justice of Alabama, Roy Moore installed various monuments to the Ten Commandments in his courts.

He was elected Circuit Judge, Place Number One of the (Alabama) Sixteenth Judicial Circuit in Gadsden, Alabama, in 1992.

As Circuit Judge, Moore was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1995 for displaying a copy of the religious text the Ten Commandments in his court, and for opening court sessions with prayer. In at least one instance, Judge Moore asked a clergyman to lead the court's jury pool in prayer.

Leveraging the controversy, Moore ran for the elected post of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama on a campaign based on "restoring the moral foundation of law."

After being elected Chief Justice in November 2000, in the middle of the night of July 31, 2001, Moore surrepititiously installed a 5,300-pound granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the central rotunda of the Alabama state judical building.

On Tuesday 30 October 2001, the ACLU of Alabama and the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, asking that the monument be removed because it "sends a message to all who enter the State Judicial Building that the government encourages and endorses the practice of religion in general and Judeo-Christianity in particular."

Moore argued that removing the monument would cause him to violate his oath of office, because, Moore claimed, the 10 Commandments are the moral basis of U.S. law.

When U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled the momument unconstitutional, Moore refused to remove it. He was eventually overruled by the other members of the Alabama Supreme Court, who had the monument removed. Because of the momument's weight and worries that it might break through the floor if taken out of the building, the momument was put into storage in the building. Moore was then suspended as Chief Justice (with full pay) pending a hearing of the Alabama Court of the Judiciary.

On Thursday 13 Novemeber 2003, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary, a panel of judges, lawyers and others appointed variously by judges, legal leaders and the governor and lieutenant governor, unanimously removed an unrepentant Moore from the ofice of Chief Justice because, according to Court of the Judiciary Presiding Judge William Thompson, "[t]he chief justice placed himself above the law."

In closing arguments, the Assistant Attorney General said Moore's defiance, left unchecked, "undercuts the entire workings of the judicial system."

"What message does that send to the public, to other litigants? The message it sends is: If you don't like a court order, you don't have to follow it," he said.