The son of Roy Moore, Albama's furiously anti-gay and pro-Ten Commandments chief justice, has been arrested on drug charges.
The Huntsville Times reports that 24-year-old Caleb Moore is being charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of marijuana. Officers were responding to an attempted break-in at a residential address; they found Moore and four other men outside, per the Times, "near a pickup truck that smelled strongly of marijuana." A search of the vehicle turned up a bag of pot, several Xanax tablets and Moore's passport. It's not his first arrest, they point out: he was also picked up in 2011 for drug possession and DUI charges. He also pleaded guilty to a drug paraphernalia charge in 2013.
Despite Chief Justice Moore's hatred of sin, especially the gay kind, he's always been a little softer on drug crimes and drug offenders. He could be a little touchy about that: in 2000, when a judge named Harold See was running against him for the chief justice spot, See commented that Moore was a little soft on drug crimes; Moore responded by filing an ethics complaint against him and getting him temporarily booted off the bench. By 2014, though, Moore was openly talking about the need for "mercy" for non-violent offenders. From the Huntsville Times:
Chief Justice Roy Moore, who earned a reputation fighting the federal government over the right to display the Ten Commandments in a public building, suggests that Alabama has gone too far in pursuit of Old Testament punishment.
"I'm concerned about the sentences we are rendering," he says.
Moore talks about life terms for three-time convicts who had never physically injured anyone. He calls life-without-parole a death sentence.
"I think the habitual offender law is being applied unfairly," he says.
Young Caleb's last brush with negative publicity was when Joe Jervis of Joe My God pointed out that a Twitter account in his name was sending out lots of fun tweets about "niggas," "hoes" and "poon." Caleb denied that the Twitter account belonged to him, telling the Huntsville Times the account was splicing old photos of him from deactivated Facebook and Instagram accounts and making up quotes to go along with them. He said he was a changed man from the time those photos were taken:
"Being young and immature, I did post pictures of me with drinks in the background," he said. "I started to mature and realized those pictures were immature. I've done nothing more than any other college kids. Because of who I am, it gets blown out of proportion. Since then I've got in a closer walk with the Lord. Whatever anyone says about me, it doesn't bother me. The people who know me and know what's true can really see what's going on here and see through critics of my dad."
Caleb also told the Times he'd made his Twitter account private because of The Gays: "I was getting tired of homosexuals messaging me and saying things."
Roy Moore, pictured in February 2015. Photo via AP
Contact the author at anna.merlan@jezebel.com.
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