Montgomery, Ala. ? The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court said Thursday he would not remove a Ten Commandments monument from the State Judicial Building, defying a federal court order to get rid of the granite monument.

The Ten Commandments monument will remain -- for now -- in the State Judicial Building in Montgomery, Ala. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore announced his decision Thursday to defy a federal court order to remove the monument from public display in the building.

“I have no intention of removing the monument,” Roy Moore said at a news conference. “This I cannot and will not do.”

Moore said he planned to ask the U.S. Supreme Court today to stop a federal judge from enforcing an order to remove the monument.

His decision came six days before the Aug. 20 deadline for the 5,300-pound monument to be removed from the building’s rotunda, where it is in clear sight of visitors coming in the main entrance.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson of Montgomery, who ruled the monument violates the Constitution’s ban on government promotion of religion, had said fines of about $5,000 a day could be imposed against the state if the monument were not removed.

Moore accused Thompson of a “callous disregard for the people of Alabama” and their tax dollars.

Attorneys who sued to remove the monument filed a judicial ethics complaint Thursday against Moore for disobeying the order. A lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which joined the lawsuit, said it was a sad day for the state.