RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - People who want Confederate monuments to be returned to Richmond are trying to take their case to the Virginia Supreme Court.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Thursday that they're asking the high court to reverse a lower court's decision that denied a request to return the monuments.
The Confederate memorials were removed from city property last summer.
The petition was filed by the same plaintiffs who are fighting the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue that sits on state property.
They allege that city officials failed to follow procedures established by a new state law that allows localities to remove war memorials.
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney had ordered the removal of Confederate monuments on city property in July. The City Council ratified Stoney’s removal order, but only after the city had removed more than a dozen statues.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has ordered the removal of the Lee monument from state property. But the order has been blocked by another court case that is now before the Virginia Supreme Court.
Patrick M. McSweeney, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in both cases, filed a petition asking the high court's justices to reverse a Richmond Circuit Court decision. It had denied a request that would restore the monuments back to where they were.
Haskell C. Brown III, the acting city attorney, declined to comment on the case.
