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    Default City sues to remove Confederate monument, citing free speech

    U.S.
    City sues to remove Confederate monument, citing free speech
    Associated Press BEN FINLEY,Associated Press 16 hours ago
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    File-This June 25, 2015, file photo shows the 15-foot figure of a Confederate soldier on top of a Norfolk monument commemorating the last reunion of surviving confederate soldiers. Virginia’s second largest city is suing the state in an attempt to remove an 80-foot-tall Confederate monument from its downtown. The city of Norfolk’s suit was filed Monday, Aug. 19, 2019, in federal court and targets a Virginia law that prevents the removal of war memorials. (Bill Tiernan/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, File)
    File-This June 25, 2015, file photo shows the 15-foot figure of a Confederate soldier on top of a Norfolk monument commemorating the last reunion of surviving confederate soldiers. Virginia’s second largest city is suing the state in an attempt to remove an 80-foot-tall Confederate monument from its downtown. The city of Norfolk’s suit was filed Monday, Aug. 19, 2019, in federal court and targets a Virginia law that prevents the removal of war memorials. (Bill Tiernan/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, File)
    NORFOLK, Va. (AP) The city of Norfolk, Virginia, is claiming in a lawsuit that its free speech rights are being violated because a state law won't let it remove an 80-foot (24-meter) Confederate monument from its downtown.

    Norfolk's lawsuit employs a relatively novel and untested legal strategy in the federal court system for trying to remove a Confederate monument, legal experts say. The main legal question in this case is whether cities have free speech rights.

    The city filed suit Monday in a U.S. District Court in Norfolk and targets a Virginia law that prevents the removal of war memorials. The suit claims infringement of the First Amendment because the city is being forced to project a message it no longer supports.

    "The purpose of this suit is to unbuckle the straitjacket that the commonwealth has placed the city and the city council in," Norfolk argues in its complaint. "Because the monument is the city's speech, the city has a constitutional right to alter that speech, a right that the Commonwealth cannot take away."

    Video: UNC Students Celebrate Confederate Statue Removal Anniversary

    Norfolk owns the monument, which includes a statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed "Johnny Reb" as well as the seal of the former Confederacy. Council members voted in 2017 to move the monument to a cemetery.

    Built in 1907, the monument was one of many erected across the southern United States between 1890 and 1919, well after the Civil War's 1865 conclusion. The Reconstruction era had ended. And an interpretation of that war that historians call the Lost Cause had emerged that romanticized the South and de-emphasized slavery.

    The defendants in Norfolk's suit include the state of Virginia and state Attorney General Mark Herring.

    Herring's office will review the suit and respond appropriately in court, spokeswoman Charlotte Gomer said. She added that Herring has long called for the law's repeal as well as the removal or relocation of Confederate statues.

    Gomer also pointed out that Herring has written advisory opinions to help facilitate the removal of "Confederate iconography," including the removal of a Confederate flag from a city-owned historic home in Danville.

    University of Virginia law professor Richard C. Schragger said Norfolk's lawsuit makes a relatively "novel legal claim that hasn't been tested in federal court yet."

    Schragger said Tuesday that there is legal precedent for the free speech rights of private corporations. But he said on the federal level, "it's not entirely clear that a city can bring a First Amendment claim against a state."

    However, a similar argument was made recently in a state court in Alabama.

    In January, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Graffeo ruled that Alabama's 2017 law against removing public memorials violated the free speech rights of local communities. The ruling was stayed in February by the state Supreme Court pending an appeal.

    Various legal strategies have been employed in recent years to circumvent state laws protecting Confederate monuments. For instance, the city of Memphis, Tennessee, used a legal loophole in 2017 that involved selling city parks to a private nonprofit. It then removed confederate statues, including one of Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

    But the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, is still in a long-running legal battle involving its efforts to remove statues of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. A Virginia judge issued a pre-trial ruling in April that said t....................
    We see this type of rap time and again-as these ffing dem/lib/leftists want to destroy history.Want to destroy it so they can better rewrite it to suit their own bullshit retarded political agenda...
    Want to stir a greater divide , hoping to get more black votes..
    These type vermin have no honor- they are like maggots...
    Since when is it --free speech-- to be allowed to destroy history??-- Tyr
    Last edited by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot; 08-21-2019 at 09:06 AM.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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