After refusing to discuss allegations that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore had inappropriate sexual contact with nine women when they were still teenagers, President Donald Trump
during a impromptu conference with a group of reporters just before he and his family departed Washington for the Thanksgiving holiday.
In a response that outraged at least one reporter who shouted questions about the girls' alleged age at the time after the president finished speaking, Trump suggested that he has taken Moore's denials at face value. And even if the allegations are true, the "Republican party doesn't need a liberal Democrat in that seat" Trump said.
"Well he denies it, Roy Moore totally denies it. And by the way, he gives a total denial. And I have to say, 40 years is a long time. He's run eight races and this has never come up. The women are Trump voters, most of them are Trump voters. So I guess you have to do what you have to do," Trump said.
Shocker: New York Times Writes Positive Article on Roy Moore
Maybe it wasn’t meant that way. From the
Times’ piece’s title, “In Sex Crimes and Other Cases, Roy Moore Often Sided With Defendants,” readers may assume the implication is that Judge Moore exhibited the common human tendency to go soft on that of which one is himself guilty. (As with seemingly everyone now, Moore currently faces sexual-misconduct allegations.) Instead, however, the
Times paints a picture of a moral, principled judge who often sided with the little guy against the powers that be.
What may surprise many, however, is that judge Moore’s principles, as true principles will, extended to areas that his passions didn’t. As the
Times reports, “‘He consistently was more interested in the arguments of the criminal defendants than many of his colleagues,’ said Matt Lembke, an appellate lawyer in Birmingham who has argued several cases in front of Mr. Moore. ‘And I think that stemmed from a distrust of government power reflected in his judicial philosophy.’”
As for Moore’s empathy, the
Times provides some striking examples:
When a man on death row missed a filing deadline with a lower court, and when most of the Alabama Supreme Court opted not to review his case, Mr. Moore was one of two justices who voted the other way and said some of the evidence used to convict him seemed deficient.
In another instance, Mr. Moore wrote that a man’s “sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for a nonviolent, drug-related crime reveals grave flaws in our statutory sentencing scheme.”
And in another case, Mr. Moore dissented and said a man’s unpaid meal at a Waffle House should have led to a theft conviction, not a 35-year sentence for robbery. He called the case, which the majority voted not to review, “a serious miscarriage of justice.”
Two lawyers who worked with Moore told the
Times that the judge sought to protect those wronged by the system. “‘He had no love for criminals, but he believed that every defendant was entitled to due process of law,’ one of the lawyers, Matthew Clark, said in an e-mail. ‘He saw many cases where the defendants, especially young black men, would be convicted solely on very weak circumstantial evidence.’”
Unsurprisingly — to those acquainted with the soul of a dutiful judge — Moore’s constitutionalism extended beyond social issues and to all areas of his jurisprudence. A good example was the case of a black 17-year-old named Eric L. Higdon, who received 23 years’ incarceration for sexually assaulting a younger boy at a daycare center. Moore dissented from the majority opinion in Higdon’s appeal, reasoning that “while Mr. Higdon was guilty of one form of sodomy, another sodomy law used to convict him was never meant to apply to abuse ‘of children by other children,’ the
Times informs. “Mr. Moore wrote that ‘sodomy is an abhorrent crime and should be strictly punished’ but that ‘I am concerned the court is stepping into the shoes of the legislature in this case.’”
This dissent was used against Moore in the Republican primary by his opponent, Luther Strange, who accused the judge of being soft on child molesters. Yet Moore was merely exhibiting discipline, a quality required for a judge to rule contrary to his own will, feelings, or agenda. And without discipline there is no rule of law.
More at:
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...e-on-roy-moore
Tell me again what a "statist" "law and order" type he is.
