A note to all wanna-be populist demagogues: insisting you can't get a fair trial makes you sound like an uncredible nut.

Alabama chief justice faces ethics charges

MONTGOMERY, Alabama (CNN) -- Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who opposed federal and state orders to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a public building, faces a judicial panel Wednesday morning in a showdown between the state's top judge and top prosecutor.

More than two months after the 5,300-pound granite monument was removed from the rotunda of Alabama's Judicial Building, Moore will face charges filed by Attorney General Bill Pryor that Moore violated judicial ethics when he refused a federal order to remove the monument.

The Alabama Court of the Judiciary, which will hear the case, could remove Moore from office, suspend him, reprimand him or exonerate him. The hearing may last only one day.

Pryor filed the ethics charges against Moore after the chief justice refused U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson's order to remove the monument.

Thompson ruled the monument was an unconstitutional promotion of religion by government in violation of the First Amendment.

In August, after a protracted legal fight, the Alabama Supreme Court's eight associate justices had the monument moved out of sight. (Full story)

The U.S. Supreme Court on November 3 refused to hear Moore's appeal in the case. (Full story)

The Associated Press reported Monday that Pryor was seeking Moore's removal from the elected office.

In a pretrial brief, Pryor said Moore should be removed because he "intentionally and publicly engaged in misconduct, and because he remains unrepentant for his behavior," the AP reported.

Moore's lawyers said in a brief filed Monday that the chief justice was not guilty of any ethical charges and that the allegations against him were without merit, partly because the federal judge never charged Moore with contempt, the AP reported.

Moore, who was suspended with pay when charged, has expressed doubt that he could receive a fair trial. He said he is concerned that cameras will not be allowed inside the courtroom for most of the trial.

Republicans drop support

Moore's case became a magnet for religious conservatives around the country.

He and his supporters say the Ten Commandments are the foundation of the U.S. legal system and that forbidding the acknowledgment of the Judeo-Christian God violates the First Amendment's guarantee of free exercise of religion. (Moore interview with CNN)

But a lawsuit filed after the monument's installation argued the massive stone marker constituted a government endorsement of Christianity.

The First Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... ."

With Thompson threatening to fine the state $5,000 a day for defying his order, Pryor and Gov. Bob Riley refused to support Moore.

Both men are Republicans and self-professed conservative Christians who supported the monument's installation, but they said Moore was bound to obey Thompson's order.

Pryor has been nominated to a seat on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bush, who has been silent on the issue.

Moore was a circuit judge in Etowah County, northeast of Birmingham, in the late 1990s when he fought a lawsuit seeking to remove a wooden plaque depicting the commandments from his courtroom.

The legal battle propelled him to statewide office in 2000, when the Republican jurist was elected chief justice after campaigning as the "Ten Commandments Judge."

In suspending Moore, the Judicial Inquiry Commission charged Moore with six ethics violations.