So Help Me God

Introduction

It doesn't seem that long ago that I became a circuit judge in Etowah County and placed a small hand-made plaque of the Ten Commandments on the wall behind my bench. Yet, twelve years have now passed and much has occurred, eventually resulting in my removal from the highest judicial office in the state of Alabama.

I have received both praise and criticism for what I have done, and some have even distorted or dismissed the true issue, but my full story remains untold. This book is not only about my life; it is about the importance of the public recognition of the sovereignty of God. Although it may appear that my journey has ended, the awakening of the American people and their response to the events that occurred in Alabama over the last decade have only just begun.

To explain why this happened, I tell my story beginning on a small farm in Alabama, to the United States Military Academy at West Point, through Vietnam, and eventually to the position of chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Along the way, I discuss the history of our nation and God's indispensable role in the foundation and prosperity of this country.

Federal judges who hypocritically open their courts with a prayer (“God save the United States and this honorable court)” and take their oath (“so help me God”) while prohibiting public displays that acknowledge the sovereignty of God have placed themselves above the law, making their opinions the new standard of right and wrong. As a result, our country is being led to deny the existence of the Creator God.

This turning away from God is known as apostasy and, unfortunately, is nothing new. In the days of Isaiah, the people of Judah were turned from God by those who swore “by the name of the LORD, and ma[d]e mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness” (Isa. 48:1). Like America today, Judah was a nation that called upon God's name but refused to recognize His sovereignty or abide by His law. Jeremiah described the people of Judah by stating, And though they say, The LORD liveth; surely they swear falsely.

O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return. (Jer. 5:2-3)

The eyes of the Lord are still upon the truth! Although America has suffered violence in our public schools, murder of our unborn children, and disintegration of our families and public institutions, we, like Judah, have made our faces harder than a rock, refusing to return to the only hope for our land, a belief in the God of our forefathers.

Yet God has promised in His Word that if His people, which are called by His name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, then He will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land (see 2 Chron. 7:14). Only God will heal our land. But we must understand that no governing authority can place itself above God or above the law. We must remain one nation under God, or, as President Ronald Reagan so aptly stated, “we will be a nation gone under.”

It is my hope that this book will help restore the moral foundation of our law and return the knowledge of God to our land. I am pleased to tell my story, So Help Me God.

Chapter One

Can the State Acknowledge God?

Judges do not normally find themselves on trial in their own courtroom, but then again, there has never been anything normal about the legal issues I have confronted. On November 12, 2003, I sat in the witness chair in front of the very bench from which, until just a couple of months before, I had presided as the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. The prosecution, led by Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, had already asked in their written arguments that I be removed from office. Now Pryor was cross-examining me in the courtroom of the Alabama Judicial Building.

The Ten Commandments monument that I had placed in the rotunda of the building to acknowledge God had already been declared unconstitutional by a federal district judge, ordered removed from the rotunda, and locked in a storage room by my colleagues on the court. But on this day, I was being questioned before an ethics panel because I had refused to move the monument.

“And your understanding,” Attorney General Pryor asked me, “is that the federal court ordered that you could not acknowledge God. Isn't that right?”

“Yes,” I responded.

Pryor continued in a slow and deliberate manner. “And if you resume your duties as chief justice after this proceeding, you will continue to acknowledge God as you have testified that you would today, no matter what any other official says?” I could not believe he was actually asking me this, but there was only one answer to such a question.

“Absolutely,” I replied. “Without-if I can clarify that-without an acknowledgment of God, I cannot do my duty. I must acknowledge God. It says so in the Constitution of Alabama. It says so in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It says so in everything I've read. So . . .” Pryor was nodding his head impatiently.

“Well,” he finally interjected, “the only point I'm trying to clarify, Mr. Chief Justice, is not why, but only that in fact if you do resume your duties as chief justice, you would continue to do that without regard to what any other official says. Isn't that right?” Pryor did not want to hear why I would continue to acknowledge God, only whether I would do so. But this was an ethics trial, so I figured this ethics panel-the Court of the Judiciary-was interested in hearing the reasons for my actions, even if the prosecutor was not.

“Well, I would do the same thing this court did in starting with the prayer. That's an acknowledgment of God. I would do the same thing that justices do when they place their hand on the Bible and say, 'So help me God.' It's an acknowledgment of God. The Alabama Supreme Court opens with 'God save this State and this Honorable Court.' It's an acknowledgment of God. In my opinions, [and] I have written many opinions, acknowledging God is the source-the moral source-of our law. I think you must.”

There was no question that I will always acknowledge God even if another official-state or federal-tells me not to. But the more pressing issue facing this country is whether these United States and our elected officials will be permitted to acknowledge God as the moral foundation of our law and justice system.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) first sued me in 1995 in federal court for my display of a plaque of the Ten Commandments in my small Etowah County, Alabama, courtroom that I placed there in 1992. Seven years later, the ACLU again sued me for placement of a monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. The federal court eventually concluded that the Ten Commandments monument was unconstitutional because it was installed “with the specific purpose and effect . . . of acknowledging the Judeo-Christian God as the moral foundation of our laws.”

The court of appeals agreed with the lower court that the monument was unconstitutional because my purpose for installing the monument was “to acknowledge the law and sovereignty of the God of the Holy Scriptures.” By ordering me to remove the monument, the lower federal court intended to force me to deny the sovereignty of God, which I will not do. I cannot stop acknowledging God because it violates my oath of office to the Alabama Constitution-which invokes the favor and guidance of Almighty God-and the United States Constitution, which does not give the federal government the power to censor a state's acknowledgment of God.

My refusal to remove the Ten Commandments monument angered one of the plaintiffs in the federal case so much that he filed ethics charges against me with the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC), a panel with which I had already developed quite an interesting history. The JIC summarily filed formal charges against me with the Court of the Judiciary, alleging that I had breached judicial ethics by refusing to follow what I considered an unlawful federal court order. By Alabama law, I was immediately suspended from the office of chief justice. By the end of August I was locked out of my office, and my colleagues on the court had taken it upon themselves to lock the Ten Commandments monument in a storage room to appease the federal court.

It was not until the trial in November 2003 that I had the chance to explain that I believed the federal court order was unlawful and required me to violate my oath. I wanted to explain to the court that the federal court was wrong on the law, that it did not have the authority to order me or the state of Alabama to stop acknowledging God, and that my action upheld rather than violated ethical standards.

But like Attorney General Pryor, the Court of the Judiciary was not interested in why I had not followed the court order, nor did it care that removing the monument would force me to violate my solemn oath. It was enough that I had disobeyed a court order. The morning after Pryor interrogated me about acknowledging God, the Court of the Judiciary decided the case, wrote a twelve-page opinion, voted, and signed an order to remove me from office.

The presiding judge read the court's judgment. He began by saying that the case was about whether, in refusing to obey a federal court order, I had violated the Canons of Judicial Ethics, and this had nothing to do with the public display of the Ten Commandments in the State Judicial Building or the acknowledgment of God.

The Court of the Judiciary apparently agreed with both federal courts that it was unconstitutional for a state official to acknowledge God publicly. The court concluded that “Chief Justice Moore not only willfully and publicly defied the orders of a United States district court, but upon direct questioning by the Court he also gave the Court no assurance that he would follow that order or any similar order in the future.”

As I listened I thought, Have these men in black robes become so vain that they will deny God simply because a higher judge has ordered them to do so? They broke under the pressure and did to me what not even the federal court could do: They removed me from the judicial office to which I had been duly elected. “Under these circumstances,” the court declared, “there is no penalty short of removal from office that would resolve this issue.” For the first time in Alabama history, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court was removed from his position.

And for what? Daring to acknowledge God when an oppresssive federal judiciary had told him not to do so.

It was that same providential God who had brought me from the hills of Gadsden, Alabama, through Vietnam, to the head of the Alabama judicial system. I could not-and never will-deny Him, and certainly not just to keep a job. Throughout our history, our country has been one nation under God, recognizing that our inalienable rights are endowed by our Creator and not by man.

Can the state acknowledge God? It certainly can-and I believe that for America to continue to enjoy the blessings of liberty it must- and we must always recognize God as the source of these liberties. And if, at the end of my journey, my life has drawn attention to that one, true God, I will stand with the apostle Paul, who said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7).

But how did someone get to the highest judicial position in Alabama, only to be removed for upholding his solemn oath of office?

Let's start at the beginning.