Alabama chief justice unrepentant

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Prosecutors urged a judicial panel to oust suspended Chief Justice Roy Moore on Wednesday for disobeying a federal judge’s order to move his Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse rotunda — a defiant stand that Moore said was moral and lawful.

Moore, whose cause has rallied religious conservatives across the country, argued he was upholding his oath of office and promises to Alabama voters when he refused to move the 5,300-pound granite monument.

"Not only did I fulfill what I told the people of Alabama I would do, I also had a duty to uphold the constitutions of the United States and the state of Alabama. They both acknowledge God," Moore said.

Attorney General Bill Pryor, who is prosecuting Moore, told the court in opening statements that they should remove the chief justice from office because of his "utterly unrepentant behavior."

The Court of the Judiciary is hearing six charges that Moore violated the Canons of Judicial Ethics when he ignored the order to move the monument, which eventually was rolled to a storage room on instructions from his fellow justices.

It would take a unanimous vote from the Court of the Judiciary to remove Moore from office halfway into his six-year elected term.

The court began deliberating Wednesday afternoon and was expected to announce a decision today.

In closing statements, assistant attorney general John Gibbs said Moore’s refusal to obey a court order "undercuts the entire workings of the judicial system."

"The message it sends is: If you don’t like a court order, you don’t have to follow it," he said.

Moore attorney Terry Butts said "propriety is often in the eye of the beholder."

More than 200 people packed into the courtroom for the hearing, just two floors above the rotunda where the 5,300-pound granite Ten Commandments monument stood for about two years.

Civil liberties groups filed suit, and U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ordered the monument moved, calling it an unconstitutional promotion of religion by government.