MONTGOMERY, Ala. -
Moore said, adding that he wished cameras would be allowed inside the courtroom.
In his opening argument, defense attorney Jim Wilson denied that U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson's order to remove the monument was valid.
Justice Moore had every legal right to decline to obey what he deemed as an illegal order Wilson said.
Prosecutors rested their case after about an hour, most of which was spent entering evidence. They called no witnesses, but played two videotapes depicting speeches Moore gave on Aug. 14 and Aug. 21. Moore's attorneys objected to the playing of both tapes, saying their contents already were included in written evidence.
In the Aug. 14 speech, which Moore gave six days before Thompson's deadline to remove the 5,300-pound monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building, he said he had no intention of removing the monument.
This I cannot and will not do he said.
Civil liberties groups filed suit, and Thompson ordered the monument moved, calling it an unconstitutional promotion of religion by government.
A federal appeals court upheld Thompson's order and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Moore's appeal.
The monument stayed, the deadline passed, and Moore was suspended with pay by the Judicial Inquiry Commission, which charged him with violating the Judicial Canons of Ethics. The monument was moved to a storage room.
It would take a unanimous vote to remove him from office halfway into his six-year term. He also could be reprimanded or suspended.
Moore's attorney Terry Butts said the verdict could come quickly.
We've prepared the chief justice for the worst
he said.
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