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Moore barred from duties

Under state law, Moore cannot act as chief justice pending a decision on the charges by the Court of the Judiciary. Moore has 30 days to respond to the charges, after which a trial date will be set. If acquitted, he would return to his duties. If convicted, he could be censured, suspended without pay or permanently removed from office. If Moore were removed from office, the governor could appoint a replacement.
Justice Gorman Houston, senior associate justice of the state Supreme Court, will be acting chief justice while the charges are pending.
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Pryor's office will represent the Judicial Inquiry Commission and prosecute Moore at his trial. The attorney general had supported keeping the Ten Commandments monument in the judicial building, but he said it was his responsibility to enforce a federal court's order if Moore defied it.
"I'm hopeful this can be resolved very soon so that the people of Alabama can move forward one way or another," Pryor said. "These are very serious charges. There needs to be a fair and impartial proceeding, and we need to resolve it."
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Process set in 1973:
The process used in this case is unusual but not unheard of. University of Alabama professor emeritus William Stewart said the JIC was set up in the 1973 revision of the Alabama Constitution's judicial article. Since then, Stewart could not recall the suspension of any chief justice.
But Associate Justice Harold See, a sitting member of the Supreme Court, was temporarily disqualified from serving when the JIC accused him in July 2000 of violating judicial ethics rules in campaign ads.
The ads accusing his opponent, Moore, of being soft on drug defendants. See was restored to the bench after he filed suit in federal court alleging that his right of free speech had been violated. The JIC eventually dropped the complaint against See.
Circuit Judge Randall L. Cole of Fort Payne now sits as the head of the nine-member commission, which is made up of other judges, lawyers and businesspeople.