Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was suspended without pay for the remainder of his term, has been told to vacate his office, AL.com reports:
Acting chief justice Lyn Stuart sent two letters to Moore’s Etowah County home in Gallant on Monday.In one letter Stuart states that since Moore was recently found guilty of the ethics charges he must contact the court’s marshal “to arrange the removal of your personal effects from your office and to return your keys (both brass and card) to the Judicial Building on or before October 18, 2016.”In the other letter Stuart told Moore that “in an effort to keep the judiciary running smoothly and efficiently, any letters addressed to the Chief Justice that appear to contain official information will be opened by my staff.”“Letters that appear to be personal will not be opened,” Stuart wrote. “Any unopened mail or opened mail that is personal will be held and made available for you to pick up from the Marshals.”
Moore was found guilty by The Alabama Court of the Judiciary (COJ) on judicial ethics charges stemming from his defiance of the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage.
In January, Moore issued an order prohibiting 68 probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples telling them they had a “ministerial duty” to do so.
In his order, Moore actually cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling. Moore claimed that the high court’s ruling only applied to Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, the states directly involved in Obergefell.
In March, the Alabama Supreme Court dismissed a series of petitions asking it to declare that the state’s ban on gay marriage is still in effect.
That decision meant anti-gay foes like the Alabama Policy Institute were out of legal options to try and fight the SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage in Obergefell. However, that fact didn’t stop Chief Justice Roy Moore from writing a scathing rebuke of Obergefell and insisting that the state’s ban on gay marriage was still in effect.
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