SCOTUS STAYS AWAY
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James Joyner | Monday, November 3, 2003 |
AP reports,
The Supreme Court refused Monday to enter the long-running fight over an enormous monument depicting the Ten Commandments and the renegade judge who wants to put it back on display in an Alabama courthouse.The court quietly rejected appeals from suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who had argued the monument properly acknowledges “God as the source of the community morality so essential to a self-governing society.”
Lower federal courts ruled Moore violated the Constitution’s ban on government promotion of religion by placing the 5,300-pound granite monument in the rotunda of the state Judicial Building. In two appeals to the Supreme Court, Moore argued that lower federal courts do not have authority over a state’s chief justice.
Since this is all pretty well settled case law at this point, there’s really no reason for SCOTUS to have weighed in at this point, especially since it seems to have been taken care of by Alabama’s own review procedures.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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