Chief Justice Roy S. Moore graduated from Etowah High School in Attalla, Alabama, in 1965, and from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1969. He served in the U.S. Army as a company commander with the Military Police Corps in Vietnam. Chief Justice Moore completed his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1977.

During his legal career, Chief Justice Moore became the first full-time Deputy District Attorney in Etowah County, Alabama, and served in this position from 1977 until 1982. In 1984, Chief Justice Moore undertook private practice of law in Gadsden, Alabama.

In 1992, Chief Justice Moore became a judge of the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit of Alabama and served until his election as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2000. In 2003, Chief Justice Moore was removed from his position by a judicial panel for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument that he installed in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building to acknowledge the sovereignty of God.