WASHINGTON (BP)–The Supreme Court announced Nov. 3 that it will not hear an appeal from suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore regarding the now-famous Ten Commandments monument.
Without comment the justices refused to hear Moore’s appeal of a lower court ruling declaring the display as unconstitutional. Moore refused to obey a court order to remove the monument, but his associate justices overruled him. The 5,300-pound monument, which sat in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building, was moved out of public view Aug. 27.
Similar cases involving the display of the Ten Commandments are pending in courts around the country. One such case is in Ohio, where state judge James DeWeese is fighting for the right to hang a framed copy of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. A district court ruled against him last year and ordered it removed but a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard an appeal Oct. 31. The American Center for Law and Justice is representing DeWeese.
“There’s a number of these cases still coming up, so the fact that [the Supreme Court] did not take Judge Moore’s case does not mean the Ten Commandment issue is over with — far from it,” Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ, said on his radio program Nov. 3. “I expect a lot more litigation to be ensuing on that.
Moore, who was suspended for not following the court order, is scheduled to appear before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary Nov. 12 to face ethics charges. He possibly could be removed.
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