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Voters sue over Ala. judge's removal
By Associated Press
Published November 21, 2003
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Federal lawsuits filed by voters Thursday claim an ethics panel lacked the authority to remove Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore for defying a judge's order to move a Ten Commandments monument.
The lawsuits, filed in Montgomery and Mobile, claim that impeachment by the Legislature is the only constitutional way to remove an elected chief justice.
The Montgomery lawsuit was filed on behalf of five central Alabama residents who said they voted for Moore.
In a response late Thursday, Attorney General Bill Pryor asked that the lawsuit be dismissed.
"When an elected official violates the law, his election does not make him unaccountable to the law he is bound to uphold," the attorney general's court filing said.
Pryor had not yet responded to the Mobile suit.
The nine-member Court of the Judiciary, an appointed panel of judges, lawyers and private citizens, voted unanimously last week to remove Moore from office for refusing a federal judge's order to move a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building.
Attorney Brian Chavez-Ochoa, who represents the plaintiffs in the Montgomery case, said he considers removing an elected official from office in such a manner to be a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.
The Mobile lawsuit was filed on behalf of Christian talk show host Kelly McGinley of Mobile.
An attorney who sued to have the 5,300-pound monument removed said the lawsuits are frivolous.
"It's incredibly ironic for them to run to federal court after they have claimed the federal courts are the demons who are taking God out of daily life," said Richard Cohen, an attorney who is president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, head of the Christian Defense Coalition, joined Chavez-Ochoa at a news conference Thursday in Montgomery shortly before the lawsuit was filed.
Mahoney said a fairer process for removing an elected official would be impeachment by members of the Legislature, who are elected.
"I can't think of anything about the process that was used here that was just, that was constitutional," Mahoney said.
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