Judges toss request to move trial because courthouse grounds has Confederate monument

Published 10:55 am Wednesday, June 12, 2019

An appeals court has rejected a request by a Louisiana defendant to have his trial moved from a courthouse with a Confederate monument out front.

In a 2-1 decision the court denied a request Tuesday by Ronnie Anderson to have the trial moved from the East Feliciana Parish Courthouse in Clinton. The one-page ruling gave no reasoning for the decision.

Anderson faces a weapons charge after a 2017 traffic stop. A district court judge in November rejected his request to move the trial because of the 30-foot statue of a Confederate soldier on top of a pedestal that stands in front of the courthouse.

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Anderson’s attorney, Niles Haymer, had argued that the “Confederate symbolism in the entryway of the district court to be offensive, intimidating and racially insensitive.”