Ex-National Bar Association president removed from bench for 'racially charged' comments about justice system
A former National Bar Association president has been permanently removed from the bench for online and television comments about racial injustice and the need for more Black lawyers and judges. (Image from Shutterstock)
A former National Bar Association president has been permanently removed from the bench for online and television comments about racial injustice and the need for more Black lawyers and judges.
In a Jan. 16 opinion, the Mississippi Supreme Court banned 2021-2022 NBA President Carlos Moore from the bench for “racially charged” comments “aimed at creating public distrust in the judiciary and its ability to be impartial.”
The Legal Profession Blog noted the decision and published highlights. WLBT also has coverage.
The decision was based on two comments made in 2021 and 2022 by Moore, a judge in the Mississippi cities of Clarksdale and Grenada.
The first, posted to social media under the account name “Judge Carlos Moore,” commented on the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, a white man who was 17 years old when he shot and killed two people during racial justice demonstrations in 2020. Rittenhouse had claimed that he acted in self-defense.
Moore wrote: “If anyone still believes justice is blind in America after the Kyle Rittenhouse acquittals yesterday, you just refuse to accept an ugly truth. I can almost guarantee you that if Kyle had been black and killed two white men in the same manner Kyle did, he most certainly would have been convicted. There has never been a greater need for black lawyers and judges in America to keep decrying the blatant inequities that exist in our criminal justice system and to keep pushing for a color blind and more equitable judicial system.”
Judge Carlos Moore of Mississippi was the 2021-2022 president of the National Bar association. (File photo courtesy of the American Association for Justice)
Moore made the other comment on The Kelly Clarkson Show, a daytime talk show hosted by American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, as he discussed his Do Better ASAP alternative sentencing program.
Moore said: “You know, I always felt that if I got in a position of power I would try to make a difference. So many times African Americans get the short end of the stick. There are many judges that don’t look like me and the people that appear before them. They cannot be empathetic because they don’t look like the people that go before them. But I preside over two jurisdictions where there are African Americans, 85[%] to 90% of people look like me, and I want to give them a second chance if they qualify.”
The Mississippi Supreme Court said Moore “made comments that questioned the integrity of the entire Mississippi court system on national television and posted racially divisive comments disparaging the court system on a public social media platform available to the world.”
According to the state supreme court, the empathy comment attacked “an entire race’s ability to exhibit a core, not just judicial but human, ability.” The Kelly Clarkson Show comment intimated that Moore would “right past racial injustices with future decisions based on race,” the state supreme court said.
The Mississippi Supreme Court found violations of ethical canons requiring judges to uphold the integrity of the judiciary, to promote confidence in the judiciary, to perform judicial duties without bias or prejudice, and to conduct extrajudicial activities without casting doubt on their capacity to act impartially.
The state supreme court also said the comments violated a past memorandum of understanding between Moore and the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance. The agreement said Moore’s Facebook posts would include only official court business along with “judicial news, commentary, historical and current judicial events” as allowed by judicial ethics rules.
A dissenting justice argued that Moore’s statements were “discussions of broad public importance at best and ambiguous at worst.” As a result, he would find them to be protected by the First Amendment, and he would dismiss the complaint.
Moore is also facing a one-year suspension from law practice for his handling of settlement funds, the Clarksdale Press Register reported last week. Moore was supposed to give a share of a wrongful death settlement to the deceased’s mother and jailed brother but gave both portions to the mother. He told her to hold the money for her son, but she spent the money instead.
The ABA Journal was unable to reach Moore at a number found online for him.
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