By Alabama Public Radio
Montgomery, AL – Attorney General Bill Pryor is facing a February 18th deadline to respond to a lawsuit seeking to restore ousted Chief Justice Roy Moore to office.
U-S District Judge Truman Hobbs set the deadline in an order signed Thursday. The suit was filed by a Mobile Christian broadcaster. After Pryor responds to the suit, her attorney could get another two weeks to file his response. That means a decision on whether the suit will be heard might not come until March.
The suit claims the plaintiff was disenfranchised as a voter because she says her vote for Moore was illegally canceled by the Court of the Judiciary, which removed Moore for refusing to obey a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument.
The suit is separate from Moore's direct appeal to a panel appointed by the state Supreme Court. A panel of seven retired judges, headed by former Governor John Patterson, has been chosen to hear that appeal.