MONTGOMERY, Ala., Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Alabama's chief justice is ignoring a federal order Friday to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state courthouse.
About 40 supporters of Chief Justice Roy Moore stood watch over the monument in Montgomery early Friday, hoping to keep anyone from removing it from the rotunda of the state judicial building.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said Chief Justice Roy Moore has vowed to to do everything within his power to keep the monument in place. His eight colleagues on the state Supreme Court ordered the monument removed Thursday after a federal judge's midnight removal deadline passed.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson set the midnight deadline after deciding that sitting in the public rotunda, the monument violated the Constitution's ban on government promotion of a religious doctrine. Thompson said it could be moved to a private place still within the building.
The judge threatened $5,000-a-day fines if Moore left the monument in place.
Moore told broadcast interviewers Friday morning he would make another appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
