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Justices reject Ten Commandments case

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from an ousted Alabama judge  who lost his job after defying a federal order to dismantle a Ten Commandments monument.
/ Source: The Associated Press

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who lost his job after defying a federal order to dismantle a Ten Commandments monument.

Moore has become a high-profile crusader for Ten Commandment monuments as a result of the dispute over his own 2 1/2-ton granite display in the state courthouse.

A federal judge ruled that Moore violated the Constitution’s ban on government promotion of religion when he placed the monument in the rotunda of the judicial building in the middle of the night in 2001.

The display was moved last year over Moore’s objections, and a state court removed him from office.

Moore’s lawyers had called on the Supreme Court to “remedy this travesty of justice” and give him his job back. The high court declined, without comment.

The Alabama Court of the Judiciary found that Moore violated canons of judicial ethics when he refused the federal court’s order to move the monument. Moore could try to win back a seat on the court in 2006 elections.

The case is Moore v. Judicial Inquiry Commission of the State of Alabama, 04-153.