'Politically
motivated' claims against Alabama judge tossed, 'Shame on the SPLC', by Bob Unruh, 10/22/16, WND
A complaint that had been
filed against Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker by the domestic
terror-linked Southern Poverty Law Center has been dismissed by the state’s
Judicial Inquiry Commission.
“Shame on the SPLC for
filing this politically motivated complaint against Justice Parker,” said Mat
Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, which represents Parker. Parker was accused,
after he was interviewed on American Family Radio about the U.S. Supreme
Court’s opinion on marriage, of violating the Canon 3(A)(6) of the state canons
of judicial ethics.
The problem, Staver
explained, is that the rule purports to prevent any judge in the state from
making “any public comment about a pending or impending proceeding in any
court” – even if the judge is not involved in the case and if the judge’s
comments “do not have a reasonable likelihood of affecting the outcome or
impairing the fairness of that proceeding.”
Liberty
Counsel noted such a rule has been described by the American Bar
Association as violating the First Amendment. In fact, a lawsuit has
been filed in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the rule. U.S.
District Judge Keith Watkins, in the case, acknowledged the First Amendment
issues that arise when SPLC, in a political season, attempts to use an agency
of state government to suppress speech with which the SPLC disagrees. But the
judge did not rule immediately.
“We are pleased that the
complaint against Justice Tom Parker has been dismissed,” said Staver. “The
speech restrictive Judicial Canon clearly violates the First Amendment. The
Canon is so broad that it prevents judges from commenting on any case pending
anywhere in the county, even if they are teaching students in law school. “I call upon the Alabama Supreme Court and the
legislature to change this unconstitutional speech restriction and the
automatic removal provision,” said Staver.
WND reported when
the complaint was filed that if the JIC had filed a charge, Parker would have
been suspended from office based only on the accusation. That state practice also
is under legal challenge. The case developed as part of SPLC’s war on
traditional-marriage advocates in the state.
SPLC even briefly put Dr. Ben Carson, former GOP candidate for
president and one of the most admired men in America, on its list of “haters” because of his views on marriage.
The group was
linked to a domestic terror case in Washington, D.C., when a gunman, Floyd
Corkins, relied on SPLC’s “hate” list to attempt mass murder at the Family
Research Council’s office.
“On August 15, 2012, Floyd Corkins went to the Family Research Council with a gun and a bag filled with ammunition and Chick-fil-A sandwiches. His stated purpose was to kill as many employees of the Family Research Council as possible and then to smear Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces (because the founder of the food chain said he believed in marriage as a man and a woman).
Fortunately, Mr. Corkins was
stopped by the security guard, who was shot in the process. Corkins is now
serving time in prison. Mr. Corkins admitted to the court that he learned of
the Family Research Council by reading the SPLC’s hate map,” FRC documented.
Corkins was sentenced to
prison for domestic terrorism after admitting on video he accessed SPLC’s
recommendations to pick a target for his attack. SPLC identified FRC as a hate
group because it holds to a biblical definition of homosexuality.
WND reported a video showed Corkins entering the FRC offices and confronting
Leo Johnson.
FRC officials repeatedly have explained that they adhere to a biblical perspective on homosexuality but are not “anti-gay.”
“Consistent with his
statement to the FBI, a … search of Corkins’s family computer revealed that on
the afternoon of Sunday, August 12, Corkins used the computer to visit the
Southern Poverty Law Center’s website, as well as the websites for the FRC and
the second organization on his handwritten list. The FBI later recovered from
Corkins’s home several printed Mapquest and Google maps, dated August 12, 2012,
for directions to the FRC and the second organization, as well as the pad of
stationary paper used by Corkins to create his handwritten list of targets,”
the government explained in its court case against Corkins.
A separate attack by
SPLC over marriage on another Alabama judge, state Supreme Court Chief Justice
Roy Moore, has had a different result, although it remains on appeal.
The high court recently fired Moore’s staff members after the Court of the Judiciary suspended
Moore from office for the remainder of his term. The penalty is unprecedented
and possibly illegal since the state requires a 9-0 vote to remove a judge and
the court fell short of that mark.
The complaint centers on
Moore’s advisory to probate judges that an order from the state Supreme Court
to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples remained in effect despite the
U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling establishing same-sex marriage.
SPLC’s attack and abrupt
change of course on Carson was described in a commentary by Joseph Farah,
founder and editor of WND.
“Apparently, the racketeering outfit that poses as a
‘progressive’ civil liberties group realized it had crossed a bridge too far in its smear efforts
against, quite possibly, the most respected black leader in America (and, yes,
I include Barack Obama and all members of his administration and frequent White
House visitors such as Al Sharpton),” he wrote.
“The group’s
stock-in-trade is raising hundreds of millions of dollars through fanning the
flames of phantom threats posed almost exclusively by those who love America
and its Constitution. The others are a collection of actual scum-of-the-earth
racists, neo-Nazis and other certifiable lunatics who, through guilt by
association, are intended to reflect badly on the liberty proponents and
Christians and Jews on the list, who are the SPLC’s real targets.”
He noted SPLC posted
Carson on its hate list then removed him. “Think about how shameless SPLC
really is: [retired Lt. Gen. Jerry] Boykin and [Tony] Perkins [both now with
the Family Research Council] are still on the list despite the fact that the
group inspired a domestic terrorist and would-be mass murderer to conduct an
armed attack on their Family Research Council years ago with the intent of
shooting and killing every single employee and leaving a Chik-fil-A sandwich on
their corpses. That guy, by the way, now serving time in an attack that
resulted in a non-fatal bullet wound to FRC’s black security guard, never made
it to the SPLC’s ‘hate’ list, despite getting his marching orders from the
group,” Farah wrote.
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