Suspended Alabama Chief Justice Sues State Judicial Panel

Read More...BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the state agency that leveled ethics charges against him, claiming the state law that led to his removal from the bench is unconstitutional. The suit against the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission asks a court to order Moore’s immediate reinstatement as head of Alabama’s court system. The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of a provision in state law that mandates the automatic suspension of state judges once ethics charges are filed. Given the power to suspend judges, the suit claims, the commission “can wield its significant power over Alabama’s elected judges — including the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court — based upon trivialities, viewpoint-based objections, differences in legal interpretation, political motivations or, even worse, to protect itself from investigation of violations of its own rules.” “We are asking the federal court to strike down the automatic removal provision in the Alabama State Constitution and we are asking that Chief Justice Moore be immediately reinstated,” said Mat Staver, an attorney for Moore. An attorney for the Judicial Inquiry Commission did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Montgomery. Staver said Moore would soon file other documents seeking dismissal of the ethics charges. The commission is a state agency that investigates complaints against judges.