Free Republic

Suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has been given an extra two weeks to respond to judicial ethics charges leveled by the state's Judicial Inquiry Commission regarding an order he issued in opposition to gay marriage. Moore last week had filed a motion for an indefinite extension of time to file his response. He asked that the process be held up until a federal judge rules on his request for a preliminary injunction against the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. Alternatively, Moore asked for a 14-day extension. In his request for a federal preliminary injunction Moore alleges that Alabama law...

Liberty Counsel has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Hon. Tom Parker, Associate Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of several speech restrictive Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics and the automatic disqualification provision of Section 159 of the Alabama Constitution. These provisions are being used by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and its allies on the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) in an attempt to intimidate, silence, and punish Justice Parker for his originalist judicial philosophy and protected speech. The SPLC filed a complaint with the JIC, claiming that Justice Parker’s comments on the American...

Alabama state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was suspended for his administrative orders regarding the state’s fight over same-sex “marriage,” has gotten support from the woman who sparked the conflagration, Callie Granade, a federal judge who originally ordered the creation of the status in the state. Granade has issued a permanent injunction against the state’s law and constitution, and as part of her opinion, expressed the same arguments that Moore has been using in his own defense. “While it was not her intent to help the case of Chief Justice Roy Moore, federal judge Granade’s order proves our...

In 1997, a vicious thug entered the home of a pregnant Alabama woman. He raped and repeatedly stabbed her, then fled, leaving her to die in a house with three other children. Police acted swiftly and caught the attacker, Renaldo Adams, literally red-handed with blood. After a fair trial, Adams was convicted of rape and murder and given the death penalty. It took the jury less than 30 minutes to recommend his execution. As an assistant attorney general under then Attorney General (now U.S. Sen.) Jeff Sessions, I helped prosecute Adams and was satisfied the Alabama jury chose the punishment...

Ten Commandments or Ten Opinions? Pick the former unless you want to wade through nearly 150 pages of dense US Supreme Court legal jargon explaining why a Kentucky courthouse may or may not keep a display of the Ten Commandments ("may not" carried the day, by a 5/4 vote of the justices) and why a Texas statehouse may or may not keep its display of the Ten Commandments ("may" carried the day here, by a different 5/4 vote). That's right. It took the U.S. Supreme Court ten opinions and nearly 150 pages in total to micromanage two state displays of...

<p>NOTE: According to the contact listed above in the Judge's office who I just got off the phone to, this release was sent out last night via email and fax and will be on the Judge's web site later today.</p>

A week before Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist swore in President George W. Bush to a second term as president last month, Justice Clarence Thomas presided over a little-noticed inauguration inside the Court building that has generated some controversy. In an invitation-only ceremony, Thomas on Jan. 13 gave the oath of office to newly elected Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker, a close protégé and former aide to one-time Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. Moore was ousted from office in 2003 for defying a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the judicial building rotunda in...