Nearly 13 years after he was first removed from the state's highest court in 2003, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore may once again lose his seat as the state's top judicial officer.
Moore testified Wednesday before the Court of the Judiciary — a nine-member panel charged with enforcing judicial ethics — about an administrative order he sent to the state's 68 probate judges, the central piece of this trial.
A complaint against Moore was first submitted by the Southern Poverty Law Center to the Judicial Inquiry Commission in June. Since then, Moore has been suspended from the Supreme Court pending Wednesday's trial and a verdict in the case, which wasn't reached today.
The court's chief judge, Michael Joiner, said the court would return a verdict within 10 days of Wednesday. That verdict will determine the future of Moore's judicial career.
The order in question concerned how the state's probate judges should treat marriage licenses in Alabama following the U.S. Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which effectively legalized same-sex marriage across the country.
In his Jan. 6 order, Moore said the state's probate judges had a "ministerial duty" to follow the state's marriage laws, not the federal judiciary's orders. Moore contests that's not what he meant.
Moore's attorneys say the Jan. 6 administrative order was simply a "status update" on the U.S. Supreme Court's order in Obergefell, an Alabama Supreme Court order in 2014 concerning same-sex marriage and U.S. District Judge Callie Granade's order that ruled the state's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.
It was meant to clarify the conflicting orders, Moore's attorneys said.
"It's very clear from his testimony and from all of the evidence that we presented … that the administrative order did not direct any probate judge to disobey any federal court order," said Mat Staver, Moore's attorney. "It was merely a status report."
Others say it was subversion — another instance in a long list of attempts to prevent same-sex marriage in the state. Moore said he was simply informing the probate judges of case law, though, not telling them how to do their jobs.
"I would never tell them what to do, except advise them that they were under the Alabama order on Feb. 8, that they were under Alabama law and not subject to the federal judge's order," Moore said today during his testimony. "In that administrative order, I wasn't telling them to do anything."
Alabama wasn't involved with the Obergefell decision, Moore said, therefore it wasn't subject to the Supreme Court's opinion in that case. It would first need to be applied as precedent in Alabama, he said, by the Alabama Supreme Court.
The Judicial Inquiry Commission — the investigatory body that brought the complaint against Moore and led his "prosecution" today — said that Moore's order was a direct attempt to force the state's probate judges to disobey the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. District Court.
That's why they brought the six charges against the harsh critic of LGBT rights and same-sex marriage. If the court rules unanimously against him, he could again be removed from his position as chief justice, but he could also be suspended temporarily, penalized or reprimanded.
John Carroll, an attorney who represents the Judicial Inquiry Commission, said Moore issued an "incomplete and misleading" mandate that advised the state's probate judges to ignore federal orders.
"His administrative order mandated that the probate judges obey a state court injunction that was in direct conflict with a federal court injunction," Carroll said. "There can be no clearer defiance of the rule of law."
Carroll and Ashby Pate, another JIC attorney, said Moore's actions violated the state's Canons of Judicial Ethics and therefore disqualified him from his office.
"He has fostered in the mind of the public the notion that the rule of law does not matter, that judges are free to defy the Supreme Court and the orders of the lower federal courts if they believe it's appropriate," Carroll said.
Staver said Moore defended himself in his testimony today, going through, point-by-point, the charges brought against him.
"He's charged with [writing] a four-page order that did nothing but give a status report," Staver said. "He just simply gave a status report. That's why we said from the beginning that the JIC is politically motivated."
Lawyers, judges and reporters weren't the only people in Montgomery today for Moore's trial.
LGBT activists from Equality Alabama and the Human Rights Campaign rallied outside the state judicial building, including Cari Searcy, one of the women who brought the case that led to Alabama's marriage laws being ruled unconstitutional.
"We know that equality is a family value and that Alabama is a better place for everyone when all of its citizens are equally protected under the law," Searcy said.
Ambrosia Starling, an outspoken transgender activist, was also on the steps of the courthouse.
"This is Alabama. I'm never confident about anything," Starling said about the likelihood of Moore being removed from the bench. "I know the due process of law, and I'm a drag queen. ... He has attempted to upset federal authorities."
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