Posted on 07/20/2005 12:37:45 PM PDT by AzaleaCity5691
Justice Champ Lyons to seek second six-year term Lyons voted to comply with order to remove Ten Commandments monument Friday, July 08, 2005 By BILL BARROW Capital Bureau MONTGOMERY -- Alabama Supreme Court Associate Justice Champ Lyons has announced that he will seek another term on the state's highest appellate court, potentially providing another measure of ousted Chief Justice Roy Moore's electoral influence over the court he once led.
A seven-year veteran of the all-Republican court, Lyons will run for his second six-year term in 2006. The longtime Montgomery and Mobile attorney-turned-jurist has served on the nine-member panel since his appointment by then-Gov. Fob James in 1998. He won his first full term in 2000, carrying 79 percent of the vote in a race with no Democratic nominee.
Lyons, 64, will attempt to do what former Justice Jean Brown last year could not: win at the ballot box after having been one of eight associate justices who voted to comply with a federal judge's order to remove Moore's Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building.
Brown, the first of the justices to face a re-election bid, defined herself as the jurist who helped install a constitutional Ten Commandments display -- one that displays the Judeo-Christian laws alongside other legal documents from throughout history -- in the state courthouse rotunda, while still respecting the authority of the federal judiciary. She lost the Republican primary to Tom Parker, a former staff attorney for Moore.
But Lyons has -- and did so again in a statement announcing his candidacy -- criticized the high court's legal reasoning that effectively renders the constitutionality of a Ten Commandments display on the question of whether the individual monument is religious or historical in nature.
Displays judged by the courts to be clearly religious are impermissible under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, while historical displays are not, according to the Supreme Court. Those standards were used again in two highly publicized Ten Commandments cases from Kentucky and Texas, decided last month.
Born in Massachusetts, Lyons finished high school in Birmingham, is an alumnus of Harvard University and the University of Alabama School of Law. He is married to the former Emilee Oswalt of Mobile. They have two children and two grandchildren.
Hope the mealy-mouth POS gets defeated.
What are your feelings about Bill Pryor?
I remember the people of Alabama sided with Judge Moore. People thought the monument wasn't hurting anyone, and those who didn't want to read it didn't have to.
I hope this guy loses big. He let a well known commie group deny the states choice to express it's beliefs as they saw fit.
I drove to Alabama during the worst of the Judge Moore travesty...I don't think this guy will be re-elected. All I heard from people on the street was what an absolute snake in the grass he is.
He may be a snake in the grass and a POS.
But not because of his correct decision against self-aggrandizer Moore.
Well, I will be voting for Mr. Lyons in the primary, just as I voted against every Moore slate candidate in the primaries.
I know I am not the only one who sees through Mr. Moore, most of the Bay area does too. Not a single Moore slate candidate was able to carry either Mobile or Baldwin, and don't look for them to do it this time either.
Wouldn't mind seeing Pryor elevated to SCOTUS to replace Rehnquist. Loved the way the Prez got him on the Court of Appeals. clintoon appt'd many when Congress wasn't in session and the demoncRATS roared with approval. Yet, when Prez Bush followed clintoon's lead, the liberal lefty demoncRATS roared with disapproval while the real world roared with approval.
What part of this state did you drive to.
Did you just talk to people outside that courthouse protesting on the steps, or did you actually talk to Alabamians who were not taking an active role in protests on either side.
The majority of people I associate with are Republican, and not a single one of them has a favorable opinion towards Mr. Moore.
Roy Moore has aligned himself with trial lawyers, especially in the last few years, if you want a friend of the trial lawyers, by all means, vote Roy.
Well then tell me, if you support Pryor so much, then why are you supporting a man who was very vocal in his opposition to Pryor's nomination?
Time to say "good bye"
Moore is a brave and a good man.
I was in Montgomery but drove through the state, talking to folks...every one of them was on Moore's side, including the cops I talked to.
Missed that one. Also, started reading through all the other comments. Interesting pic of Judge Roy coming through. Still have to admire him on the 10 commandments issue though.
Let me show you something
http://www.mobile-county.net/probate/
These are the election results from Mobile County Precinct # 52 (where I used to vote)
Remember before you read this, Tom Parker was clearly identified as the Roy Moore candidate, so voting for him is voicing approval for Roy Moore
(all Republicans will be on the left)
Bush 80%, Kerry 18%;
Shelby 85%, Sowell 15%;
Bonner 82%, Belk 17%;
Parker 54%, Smith 46%
Smith 81%, Monroe 18%
Bolin 79%, Rochester 20%
I don't really think I need to go on, as this makes my point.
I'll always admire Moore for his stand...that's all I can tell you.
Alabama Supreme Court judges owe more to America and to Alabama than to remove Roy Moore. As a Catholic (like Pryor) I don't need Roy Moore preaching to me on Sunday. On the other hand, few judges do it better than he did on your state supreme court. I bet I would disagree with Chief Justice Emeritus Roy Moore on matters religious but I admire his "in your face" defiance of federal tyranny.
The remedy in a system like Alabama's in which judges are elected is obvious. Drive from the bench each and every justice who voted to remove Moore. Tit for tat and make the eight of them poster children for what happens to judges (even business-oriented heathens posing as Republicans) when they are held in contempt of the court of public opinion. Replace each judge by election (what a novel concept!) of non-elitist Southern firebrands of the sort who are admired all over our nation. Maybe someday we can reject SCOTUS justices by ballot and reclaim our own country.
Raise money for the elections by selling dartboards featuring the faces of the faithless judges. If the trial lawyers have to chip in in self-defense, so be it. Roy Moore is fighting for principles that are one hell of a lot more important than "tort reform".
Alabama Supreme Court judges owe more to America and to Alabama than to remove Roy Moore. As a Catholic (like Pryor) I don't need Roy Moore preaching to me on Sunday. On the other hand, few judges do it better than he did on your state supreme court. I bet I would disagree with Chief Justice Emeritus Roy Moore on matters religious but I admire his "in your face" defiance of federal tyranny.
The remedy in a system like Alabama's in which judges are elected is obvious. Drive from the bench each and every justice who voted to remove Moore. Tit for tat and make the eight of them poster children for what happens to judges (even business-oriented heathens posing as Republicans) when they are held in contempt of the court of public opinion. Replace each judge by election (what a novel concept!) of non-elitist Southern firebrands of the sort who are admired all over our nation. Maybe someday we can reject SCOTUS justices by ballot and reclaim our own country.
Raise money for the elections by selling dartboards featuring the faces of the faithless judges. If the trial lawyers have to chip in in self-defense, so be it. Roy Moore is fighting for principles that are one hell of a lot more important than "tort reform".
You should understand, my Catholicism is one of the primary reasons that I am a Moore opponent, to understand this, you'd have to understand very complex issues related to the interdynamic of this state.
I personally believe Moore should have been removed because he was costing the state money, he was giving the state a bad image as far as the business community is concerned.
I didn't vote for him in the first place, and he proved me right, he was an activist judge and he deserved to be removed. Roy Moore is dangerous because it is his full intention to be the next George Wallace. He has already shown a classic Wallace tactic, namely that of running entire slates of candidates.
Moore is not an "activist", as you cannot be Conservative and an activist, he is what I call a "correctionist." He corrects previous activist decisions and setting things right again. Of course, you and I have been over this business repeatedly, and we don't agree. But I will say that Mr. Lyons deserves primary defeat. If it's going to be a "Sophie's Choice" (as you describe it) of a trial lawyer who unapologetically defends the Constitution vs. someone against those ludicrous lawsuit decisions who prostrate themselves before liberal federal "jurists" who bend the law (or making it up) to suit their own ends, you can guess whom I'm going to support.
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