Roy Moore

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Roy Stewart Moore (born February 11, 1947) is an American politician who served as the 27th and the 31st chief justice of Alabama and was deposed from office each time.

He was the Republican nominee in the 2017 United States Senate special election in Alabama to replace Jeff Sessions' vacated seat, but lost to Democratic nominee Doug Jones.

Moore attended West Point and served as a company commander in the Military Police Corps during the Vietnam War.

After graduating from the University of Alabama Law School, he joined the Etowah County district attorney's office, serving as an assistant district attorney from 1977 to 1982.

He was named as a circuit judge by Governor Guy Hunt in 1992 to fill a vacancy and was confirmed to the office at the next term.

Moore was elected chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama in 2001.

Early life

Moore was born in Gadsden, Alabama, the seat of Etowah County, to construction worker Roy Baxter Moore, who died in 1967 and former Evelyn Stewart. After his father, who served during World War II, was kicked out of the Army, his parents met and married. Moore was the oldest of five children in the United States. He had two brothers and two sisters as a child and two sisters.

The Moores immigrated to Houston, Texas, the scene of a postwar building boom in 1954. They returned to Alabama, Pennsylvania, and then Alabama permanently, after about four years. Moore's father served with the Tennessee Valley Authority, first building dams and then the Anniston Army Depot. Moore attended his freshman year of high school in Gallant near Gadsden, then transferring to Etowah County High School for his final three years, graduating in 1965.

Moore was accepted to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, on the recommendation of outgoing Democratic Rep. Albert Rains, and after the confirmation of his appointment by new Republican Representative James D. Martin of Gadsden, the incumbent Republican senator announced him. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1969. Moore served in several capacities as a military police officer, including Fort Benning, Georgia, and Illesheim, Germany, before being sent to South Vietnam. Moore, the commander of the 188th Military Police Company of the 504th Military Police Battalion, was accused of negligence but strict. Despite official instruction that discourages such conduct, he proclaimed his troops saluted him on the battlefield, because salutes could identify an officer to enemy attacking. Because of his discipline, several of his troops gave him the derogatory name "Captain America." This role earned him enemies, and he recalls sleeping on sandbags to prevent a grenade or bomb from being tossed under his bed as many of his boys had threatened him with screaming.

Moore was discharged from the United States Army as a captain in 1974 and enrolled in the University of Alabama School of Law the same year. Due to his inability for keen analysis, professors and classmates treated him with skepticism. He graduated with a Juris Doctor degree in 1977 and returned to Gadsden to begin private practice with a concentration on personal injury and insurance.

Moore soon moved to the district attorney's office, where he began as the first full-time prosecutor in Etowah County. Moore was prosecuted by the state bar for "suspect conduct" after convening a grand jury to look at what he suspected of being funding shortages in the sheriff's office during his tenure. Moore resigned as a prosecutor rather than a Democrat for the county's circuit-court judge seat in 1982, just weeks after the state bar probe was dismissed as unfounded. Moore argued that cases were being postponed in exchange for payoffs, which was bitter. The charges were never substantiated. Moore largely lost the Democratic run-off primary to fellow attorney Donald Stewart, whom Moore described as "an honorable man for whom I have a great respect" and "who" later became a close friend." Moore's second bar complaint was dismissed as unfounded. Moore arrived in Gadsden and lived for a year in Australia shortly after.

After his service in Vietnam, Moore, a country Moore, said later, he wanted to visit but was unable to reach Australia at the time, so he headed to Queensland. He began in Brisbane, Queensland, and assisted with the sugar cane harvest, then inland to the Central Highlands region, where he fulfilled his long-awaited destination to see the Outback, eventually working at the Telemon ranch near Springsure, where many locals are devout Christians. To The Guardian in 2017, one of them, the Rolfe family, spoke highly of Moore, "I don't believe he'd ever done that kind of manual labour in his life." "But he took it like a duck to water" says Isla Turner, Colin Rolfe's daughter.

Moore returned to Gadsden in 1985 and married Kayla Kisor at the time. He ran for Etowah County's district attorney position against fellow Democrat Jimmy Hedgspeth in 1986. Moore returned to private practice in the city after losing once more. Moore resigned from the Republican Party in 1992.

Personal life

When Kayla Kisor, Moore's future wife, was in her mid-teens appearing at a dance recital, she first noticed her. Moore was 31 at the time. Moore wrote, "I knew Kayla was going to be a special person in my life" in his 2005 autobiography. Moore and Kayla Kisor Heald were again at a Christmas party in 1984, but she was still a married mother. She filed for divorce from her first husband on December 28, 1984, and she was divorced on April 19, 1985. On December 14, 1985, Roy Moore married Kayla. He was 38, and she was 24. They have four adult children.

Moore wrote weekly columns for WorldNetDaily, a far-right website from 2006 to 2009.

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Judicial career

Julius Swann, an Etowah County circuit judge, died in office in 1992. H. Guy Hunt, the Republican governor, was charged with making an appointment until the next election. Moore's name was shared by several of his associates, and a background check was conducted with several state and county departments, including the Etowah County district attorney's office. Jimmy Hedgspeth, Moore's former political rival who helmed the D.A., was still helmed the D.A. Despite personal reservations, Moore's office endorsed him, and Moore was installed in a situation where he had struggled to win in 1982. Moore ran as a Republican in the 1994 Etowah County election and was elected to the circuit judgeship (6 year term) with 62% of the vote. He was the first county-wide Republican to win since Reconstruction.

During Moore's tenure as circuit judge, he hung a made wooden Ten Commandments plaque in his courtroom behind his bench. Moore told the Montgomery Advertiser that his intention in hanging the plaque was to fill up the bare space on the courtroom walls and to highlight the Ten Commandments' importance. It was not his intention to cause controversies, not his intention to create controversies, he said. He told The Atlantic that he sympathized with the possibility of controversies, but that "I wanted to establish the moral foundation of our rule."

Though Moore presided over a murder trial less than a week after his appointment, the defendant's counsel protested the plaque. This attracted the attention of critics who had also objected to Moore's use of opening court sessions with a prayer seeking divine guidance for jurors in their deliberations. Moore in at least one case, a clergyman was asked to lead the court's jury pool in prayer. In June 1993, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) local branch sent a letter threatening a lawsuit if such prayers didn't cease.

The ACLU sent a representative to Moore's courtroom on June 20, 1994, to observe and record the pre-session prayer. Moore, although the firm did not launch a lawsuit straight away, opposed the proceeding as a "act of coercion" during a post-trial press conference. Moore's occurrence attracted more attention when he was attempting to hold his circuit court seat. Moore secured the seat in a landslide victory over attorney Keith Pitts, who had unsuccessfully pleaded the "Silk and Satin" murder trial, despite unsuccessfully prosecuting the "Silk and Satin" murder case.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit against Moore in March 1995, arguing that the pre-court session prayers and the Ten Commandments display were both unconstitutional. This initial complaint was eventually dismissed for scientific reasons, but Governor Fob James ordered state attorney general Bill Pryor to file a complaint in Montgomery County in favor of Moore. The lawsuit was tried before state circuit judge Charles Price, who declared the prayers unconstitutional in 1996, but allowed the Ten Commandments plaque to hang on the courtroom walls.

Moore called a press conference shortly after the decision, promising to defy the ruling against pre-session prayers and reaffirming a religious motive in displaying the plaque. Critics demanded that Price reconsider his previous decision, and the judge released a new order ordering that the Ten Commandments plaque be removed in ten days. Moore appealed Price's decision and kept the plaque up; ten days later, the Supreme Court of Alabama issued a temporary stay against the decision. The court never heard in the case, instead dismissing it for procedural reasons in 1998.

The American Family Association began drafting Moore into the Alabama Supreme Court's chief justice race in late 1999, when Montgomery's incumbent Republican Perry O. Hooper, Sr., announced that he did not seek reelection. Moore said he was reluctant to run for the statewide election because he had "absolutely no funds" and three other candidates, including Associate Justice Harold Seeker, were well-funded.

However, Moore declared from his Etowah County courthouse on December 7, 1999, with the intention of returning "God to our civic life and restoring the moral core of our government." Christianity's decreasing clout "correlated specifically with school violence, homosexuality, and crime," his campaign, which was largely based on religious values.

See was the leading candidate for the Republican nomination thanks to his involvement in both the state business community and the party's hierarchy, including Chief Justice Hooper. However, as Moore gained traction in state polls, see recruited Republican strategist Karl Rove, advisor to Texas governor and future president George W. Bush. Despite Rove's help and even more campaign funding, Moore lost the primary to Moore. Judge Moore also defeated two other contenders, criminal appeals judge Pam Baschab, and Jefferson County circuit judge Wayne Thorn, who was not in the race, winning more than half of the statewide primary election—more than half. Judge Moore then easily defeated Democratic challenger Sharon Yates in November's general election with over 60% of the vote.

Moore was sworn in as the chief justice on January 15, 2001. James D. Martin, a former president of the United States, had been named by Moore to West Point years before he was named one of the dignitaries in attendance. Moore said he had to "come to understand the true meaning of the First Amendment and its connection to the God on whom the oath was based." My mind had been opened to the spiritual war sweeping our state and the nation, which was gradually removing the understanding of God's law from the equation."

Moore started planning for a large monument to the Ten Commandments a month after his election, believing that the Heflin-Torbert Judicial Building needed something grander than a wooden plaque. His final layout called for a 5,280-pound (2,390 kg) granite block, three feet (0.91 m) wide by four feet (1.2 m) tall, adorned with quotes from the Declaration of Independence, the national anthem, and several founding fathers. The crowning feature would be two massive carved tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. Moore found benefactors and a sculptor to finish the job, so high-grade granite from Vermont was ordered and shipped. Moore's conduct were carried out with no permission or knowledge of the eight associate justices.

Moore had the completed monument delivered to the building and installed in the rotunda on the evening of July 31, 2001. Coral Ridge Ministries, an evangelical media company based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, sold videotapes of the incident, which later used funds from the tapes to fund Moore's legal expenses.

Moore held a press conference in the rotunda the next morning to officially unveil the monument. "Today a cry has gone out across our land for the recognition of that God upon whom this nation and our laws were based," Moore said in a tweet. "Today, a cry has gone out across our nation's land for the recognition of the fact that our people and our laws were established..." may this day mark the restoration of the moral basis of law to our people and the return to the knowledge of God in our land."

The ACLU of Alabama, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit in the Middle District of Alabama's on October 30, 2001, alleging that the government encourages and promotes the practice of faith in general and Judeo-Christianity in particular.

On October 15, 2002, the trial, which was titled Glassroth v. Moore, began. The plaintiffs' records showed that lawyers of various faiths had modified their work habits, including regularly avoiding visiting the courthouse to avoid passing by the monument, and that the monument had a religious atmosphere, with many people using the area for worship.

Moore argued that he would not remove the monument because doing so would breach his oath of office.

Moore said on this note that the Ten Commandments are the "moral foundation" of US law, adding that "we must first recognize the source from which all morality derives" in order to recover this foundation. The addition of the monument to the state judiciary building "marks "the restoration of the moral foundation of law to our people" and "a return to the knowledge of God in our land," he said.

In addition, Moore stated a particular theistic motive in naming the monument, acknowledging that God "represents God's absolute power over man's affairs" and "acknowledge[s] God's overruling power over the affairs of men." In Moore's view, this did not breach the doctrine of separation of church and state, and that "the Judeo-Christian God reigned over both the church and the state of this country, and that both the church and the state were sovereign, but that they should keep their personal affairs separate."

Federal U.S. district judge Myron Herbert Thompson announced on November 18, 2002, that the monument violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution's Establishment Clause and was therefore unconstitutional.

Judge Thompson ordered Moore to delete the monument from the state judicial building by January 3, 2003, but Moore stayed the order on December 23, 2002, after Moore appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. This appeal was heard in Atlanta, Georgia, before a three-judge panel on June 4, 2003. The jury delivered a decision on July 1, 2003, upholding the lower court's ruling, finding that "the monument fails two of Lemon's three prongs." It infringes on the Establishment Clause. In addition, the court found that different faith traditions have different wordings of the Ten Commandments, implying that "choosing which version of the Ten Commandments to display can have religious implications."

Judge Thompson stayed on August 5, 2003, requiring Moore to have the monument removed from public areas of the state judicial building by August 20.

Moore declared on August 14 that he would defy Judge Thompson's order to have the monument removed from his site. In front of Moore's Ten Commandments monument, large demonstrations in favor of Moore and the Ten Commandments monument were held two days later, featuring speakers such as Alan Keyes, Reverend Jerry Falwell, and Moore himself. On the day, the crowd topped out at 4,000 people, with some hundreds of hundreds to over a thousand protesters remaining until the end of August.

The time limit for removal expired on August 20, with the monument still on display in the building's rotunda. The state of Alabama faced fines of $5,000 a day before the monument was demolished, as outlined in Judge Thompson's order. The eight other members of the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in favor of Moore on August 21, unanimously overruled him and ordered the removal of the monument.

Thompson, "fearing that I would not follow his order," threatened other state officials and order them to destroy the monument if I did not do so, according to Moore. Moore's tactic of levies was his way of coercing obedience to that order," an act that Moore saw as a breach of the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The monument was relocated to a non-public side room in the judicial building on August 27. The monument was not immediately removed from the building for various reasons, including legal proceedings, fears that if the monument was stolen outside intact, and a desire to avoid clashes with protesters massed outside the building. The monument was not removed from the state judicial system until July 19, 2004.

The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) filed a lawsuit on August 22, 2003, two days after the Ten Commandments monument's removal had been postponed, from the Alabama Court of Justice (COJ), a committee of judges, attorneys, and others appointed irregularly by judges, legislators, and the lieutenant governor, respectively. Moore was effectively barred from his chief justice position pending a hearing by the COJ.

On November 12, 2003, the COJ's ethics hearing was held. Moore reiterated his earlier argument that "to acknowledge God is not a breach of the Canons of Ethics." There can be no ethics without God. He also stated that if given another opportunity to protest the court order, he would repeat his defiance of the court order, and that "I certainly wouldn't leave [the monument] in a closet, shrouded from the public." Moore's defiance, left unchecked, "undercuts the entire workings of the judiciary system," the assistant attorney general said in closing arguments. The message it sends is that if you don't like a court order, you don't have to follow it."

"Chief Justice Moore has breached the Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics," the COJ found in a unanimous opinion the next day. The COJ had several disciplinary options, including censure or probation without pay, but the COJ found that "under these circumstances, there is no penalty short of removal from office that would address this problem."

Moore appealed the COJ's decision to the Supreme Court of Alabama on December 10, 2003. The lawsuit was chosen by a special jury of retired judges and justices who had been randomly chosen. Moore argued that the COJ did not investigate the underlying legality of the federal courts' order that the monument be barred from the courthouse. Moore's appeal was dismissed by the Alabama Supreme Court, who ruled that the COJ did not have the power to overrule the federal courts, but only sought to determine whether Moore violated the Canons of Judicial Ethics. It was, therefore, sufficient to show that a procedurally valid order against Moore was in force. Moore argued that the COJ had administered a moral examination to hold his office and that the COJ had violated his own rights under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause.

Both of these arguments were dismissed by the Supreme Court of Alabama, who found that the COJ had acted properly on April 30, 2004. The court also upheld the removal of a worker as appropriate.

Moore wanted to return to the bench in March 2012, defeating sitting Chief Justice Chuck Malone (who had been nominated by Governor Bentley the previous year) and Montgomery County circuit judge Charles Graddick.

Moore defeated Democratic nominee Bob Vance of Jefferson County circuit judge Bob Vance in the November 2012 general election, returning to the bench. Moore received 913,021 votes to Vance's 850,816 votes.

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal ethics lawsuit against Moore on January 28, 2015, advising state attorneys and judges not to oppose federal court decisions that reversed bans on same-sex marriages after publicly speaking out against federal court decisions on same-sex marriages.

Moore ordered to summon judges and their employees on February 8, the day before a federal court decision recognizing same-sex marriage in Alabama was supposed to take place, ordering them to disregard the ruling and maintain the state's ban against the governor's threat of legal action. Prosecutors in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Huntsville disobeyed Moore and issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples on February 9, after the Supreme Court allowed the federal court decision to take effect.

Moore issued an administrative order to lower court judges, saying that "until the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the previous month," the Alabama Supreme Court's existing laws regarding Alabama probate judges have a ministerial obligation not to issue any marriage license contrary to the Alabama Marriage Protection Act remain in full force and effect."

Moore's Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) filed a list of six allegations of ethical misconduct with the Alabama Court of the Judiciary on May 6, 2016. Until a hearing and decision, Moore was barred from the Alabama Supreme Court. Moore was barred from office because of the charges, which were more serious than those that barred him from office in 2003. Moore was charged by the JIC with breaching the Alabama Canon of Judicial Ethics by:

Moore filed a federal lawsuit against the JIC on May 27, arguing that his automatic suspension was unconstitutional. Moore's appeal was dismissed by the federal district court on August 4, finding that federal courts do not interfere with pending state court hearings under abstention rule.

Moore filed a motion in June 2016 to dismiss JIC proceedings, arguing, among other things, that the JIC and Alabama Supreme Court's decision denying the admission of same-sex marriage licenses by probate judges in Alabama had been suspended by Obergefell. The Court of Judiciary scheduled a hearing date for the motion to dismiss, but it was found that it would be treated as a motion for summary judgment relating to the JIC's accusations.

"It is clear that Roy Moore is above the law, not only believes he is above the rules, he believes he is above judicial ethics," the Human Rights Campaign, a LGBT rights group, said, although Moore was not tasked with upholding the rule of the land when marriage equality was declared by the Supreme Court of the United States, but he defied the position, harming loving, married couples across Alabama for their own personal, cultural reasons."

The JIC submitted a cross-motion for summary judgment in July 2016, asking that the Court of Judiciary issue a summary decision removing Moore from the bench. "Because the chief justice has demonstrated — and promised — that he would not change his behavior, he has left this Court with no choice but to remove him from office to safeguard the institution, liberty, and impartiality of Alabama's judiciary and the people who depend on it for justice." Moore directed Alabama's probate judges to disobey an injunction issued by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama's Middle District of Alabama, according to Moore's attorneys, who argued that the Alabama Supreme Court's orders, which required Alabama's probate judges to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples, were still in force. Moore maintained that his January 6 administrative order was mischaracterized by the JIC, despite the fact that the Alabama Supreme Court's new orders that Alabama probate judges have a ministerial omission not to issue any marriage license contrary to the Alabama Marriage Protection Act or the Alabama Marriage Protection Act remain in full force and effect."

Moore's lawyers continued to state that Moore did not order probate judges to defobey the injunction ruled by the United States District Court or the Supreme Court's decision on same-sex marriage in August 2016. Moore's argument "defies common sense," the JIC's counsel said, and that Moore was defying a federal court order immediately, and should be barred from office immediately. Moore's appeal and JIC's petition were both dismissed by the Alabama Judiciary Court, who then scheduled a trial date.

Moore was found guilty of all six charges and suspended for the remainder of his term, which was set to come to an end in 2019. The Court of Judiciary ordered that Moore's argument that the point of the order was "merely to give a "status update" to the state's probate judges, according to a 50-page order. Moore would not receive a salary for the remainder of his term, according to the court. Moore was also ordered to pay court fees. Moore's Supreme Court career was effectively ended after he said he would not be eligible for reelection in 2018 if he is over the maximum age (in Alabama, candidates for the Court must be 69 years old or younger).

Moore sparked his appeal and appealed the court's decision in October 2016. Moore stated that neither the JIC nor the COJ had authority to prosecute and punish him for the remainder of his term, and that the COJ had effectively barred him from office without unanimous consent under Alabama law. Moore refused to sanitize his office when the appeal was heard.

Governor Robert Bentley released an executive order formally naming seven retired justices to hear Moore's appeal from the COJ's decision that barred him from the bench for the remainder of his term.

Moore, who is represented by Liberty Counsel, filed an appeal brief with the special Alabama Supreme Court in December 2016. Eight current and retired Alabama judges filed an amicus brief in support of Moore's removal from office and contrary to Alabama law because it did not have unanimous consent of the COJ and contrary to Alabama law, despite the fact that the COJ did unanimously consent in their final decision to suspend Moore for the remainder of his term.

Oral evidence was canceled at Moore's request to speed up the proceedings, but the special Supreme Court agreed to rule on the case based on the parties' written submissions.

Moore's suspension was upheld by the special Supreme Court on April 20. The special Supreme Court found that all of JIC's allegations against Moore were backed by credible and convincing evidence in its decision. The court also found that the allegations were not legally backed by clear and convincing evidence, and that the JIC was unanimous in their decision to suspend Moore for the remainder of his term.

Moore resigned from the Alabama Supreme Court six days following the court's ruling.

He then declared his candidacy for the United States Senate. "I disagree with a lot of court decisions, but still it's the law," Richard Shelby, Alabama's senior senator, harbored skepticism about him long before sexual assault allegations emerged, including his pledge to refuse judicial orders.

The defamation case brought against him and a woman who accused him of sexual assault ended in 2022, with neither party winning a decision in its favor.

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