Ruling on Caddo Confederate monument removal delayed
A judge heard testimony and arguments Monday in a federal lawsuit challenging removal of the Caddo Parish Confederate Monument but delayed a ruling for up to 30 days.
The hearing before U.S. District Judge Robert G. James was on a request by the Shreveport chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy for a preliminary injunction barring removal of the monument on the grounds of the Caddo Parish Courthouse.
The chapter filed suit against the Caddo Parish Commission hours after it voted, 7-5, to move the monument.
If James grants a preliminary injunction, it would stop removal until a full airing of the issues in court and a final resolution by the judge.
The lawsuit named as defendants the commission as a whole and the seven commissioners who voted for removal. Monday, the judge ordered that those seven commissioners be dismissed from the lawsuit.
The hearing was held at the U.S. Courthouse in Monroe because the case was assigned to James and he normally sits for cases there.
The hearing was the first of what could be many in the case. Litigation stalled removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans for two years after the city council there voted for removal. The monuments were moved in April and May of this year.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy argues that it owns the land near Texas Street on the north side of the courthouse that the monument sits on. It also argues that moving the piece would be too expensive and would cause irreparable damage.
For Monday's hearing, the organization called on former members of a citizen advisory committee and others associated with the chapter to testify at Monday's hearing. The original witness list included Lynda Gramling, Gary Joiner, William Nichols, Jackie Nichols and Chuck McMichael.
The parish commission appointed the advisory committee in 2016 to recommend what to do with the monument. The committee in August recommended leaving the monument in place and adding new monuments to the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th Century.
The commission, in voting for removal, rejected the advisory committee's recommendation.
Joiner, a committee member and an expert in the fields of history and cartography, testified that the minutes of the June 18, 1903, Caddo Parish Police Jury state that it gave the United Daughters of the Confederacy $1,000 and a portion of the courthouse square to build a monument.
The police jury agreed to reserve a plat of the square for that purpose, Joiner said, but no paperwork or deed was ever granted to the United Daughters creating a more formal property designation.
Joiner testified that he believes the reservation was meant to be in perpetuity and is still in effect today.
In previous court filings, the commissions' lawyer has said the use of the word "reserve" in the police jury minutes document was intentional.
"That language is not indicative of a conveyance of any kind," a previous commission filing reads.
The commission also alleges in previous filings that documents as far back as 1857 show the parish owns the property.
A point of contention is a portion of the parish website that reads: "On the Texas Street side of the Courthouse Square is the Forty-Six Confederate Veterans Reunion Monument. This monument commemorates the soldiers who lost their lives during the Civil War. A very interesting fact about the land on which this monument sits is that it does not belong to the Commission but to the Daughters of the Confederacy. However, this small piece of land is surrounded by the Courthouse Square. "
Parish Administrator Woodrow Wilson Jr. and Nathan Schlitmier were witnesses on behalf of the Caddo Parish Commission and its individual commissioners. Both testified regarding the parish’s website and said they did not alter or direct the contested text in any way.
Schlitmier, information systems director for the parish, said his predecessor entered that text for the site in 2012. Wilson said he did not know if it was original or carried over from a previous version of the website.
Joiner said in an interview after the hearing that the text was about 20 years old and was provided to the parish after research from other local historians.
Dick "Dave" Knadler, a Mansfield attorney representing the United Daughters of the Confederacy, argued that there have been numerous opportunities since 1903 for the status of the property and monument to have been resolved in court.
Retired engineer William Nichols testified that moving the monument would be expensive and difficult. He cited the monument's weight and the length of time Texas Street could be tied up during removal.
A 2015 cost estimate for removing the monument was $298,400 to disassemble and erect it in a new location, and $278,650 to disassemble and move it to storage. The monument weighs 38 to 40 tons, Joiner has said previously.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy also alleges that the commission's vote to remove the monument violated the group's rights to free speech under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, to due process under the Fifth Amendment, and to equal treatment under the law in the 14th Amendment.
Parish Attorney Donna Frazier and Assistant Parish Attorney Henry Bernstein represented Caddo Parish at the hearing.
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