JUDGE ROY MOORE AND FOUNDATION FOR MORAL LAW FILE BRIEF OPPOSING ILLEGAL GAMBLING MACHINES APPROVED BY ASHVILLE, ALABAMA
August 19 , 2009
Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and the Foundation for Moral Law, a religious liberties legal organization in Montgomery, Alabama, filed an amicus curiae brief in the Alabama Supreme Court today, arguing that video gambling machines approved by the City of Ashville and a circuit court judge are illegal under Alabama's anti-lottery law. In the brief filed in Sheriff Terry Surles v. City of Ashville, Alabama, Judge Moore and the Foundation explain that only traditional bingo games on card or paper are permitted under St. Clair County's charitable bingo amendment (Amendment 542) and relevant statutes, not the slot machines proposed by gambling special interests.
(Read the brief in Surles v. City of Ashville here.)
Judge Roy Moore stated:
“Time and again the Alabama Supreme Court has blocked these attempts to sneak in slot machines under the innocent-sounding label of ‘bingo,' and time and again the gambling special interest groups keep trying another way to get illegal gambling through the back door. The Alabama Constitution has a strong anti-lottery provision that prohibits anything even ‘in the nature of a lottery' and we urge the Court to once again uphold the law against this devious subterfuge in the City of Ashville.”
In their brief, Judge Moore and the Foundation explain the strong legal posture Alabama law maintains against lotteries. Those amendments like St. Clair County's that allow “charitable bingo” must be strictly construed as an exception to the general anti-lottery rule. The Foundation urges the Alabama Supreme Court to reverse the circuit court's ruling and hold that “machine bingo” is barred by law in St. Clair County.
This is not the first time that gambling interests have tried to circumvent state law. In 2001, Judge Moore, while Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, wrote Opinion of the Justices No. 373, which has been cited repeatedly including in the 2004 case of Ex Parte Ted's Game Enterprises and in the 2006 case of Barber v. Jefferson County Racing Association involving video “sweepstakes.” Judge Moore and the Foundation filed an amicus brief in the Barber case and the Supreme Court quoted from the brief to support its decision that the machines were illegal gambling slot machines. Earlier this year, Judge Moore and the Foundation filed a brief opposing video gambling machines in Etowah County, Alabama, in Etowah Baptist Assoc. v. Entrekin (still pending).
The Foundation for Moral Law, a national non-profit legal organization, is located in Montgomery, Alabama, and is dedicated to restoring the knowledge of God in law and government through litigation and education relating to moral issues and religious liberty cases.
