ATLANTA — The Georgia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the organization’s Lawrenceville chapter and two individual members re-filed a lawsuit this month against Gwinnett County over the removal of a Confederate monument from the Lawrenceville square.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans initially sued the county and each county commissioner last year, alleging the monument’s removal two years ago after a board vote was illegal. The organization withdrew that suit and refiled it against the county alone because the commissioners have sovereign immunity, said Martin O’Toole, spokesman for the state division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
O’Toole said the new suit also complies with the Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling in October that “community stakeholders” have standing to sue over the removal of Confederal monuments.
“We’re happy with the Supreme Court ruling because it gives us our day in court,” said O’Toole, who is also a leader of the Charles Martel Society, an Atlanta-based white nationalist organization.
The Georgia Supreme Court dismissed Sons of Confederate Veterans groups from two lawsuits over the removal of monuments in Henry and Newton counties. The Newton lawsuit was allowed to proceed with one resident as the plaintiff.
“Because the Sons of Confederate Veterans groups have not alleged anything resembling community stakeholder status and have alleged no other cognizable injury, they do not have standing,” Justice Nels Peterson said in the written decision.
The previous Gwinnett lawsuit did not attempt to prove the Sons of Confederate Veterans had sufficient community ties to sue, but the new complaint does.
The lawsuit says Major William E. Simmons Camp No. 96, the Lawrenceville-based chapter, has operated continuously since 1898. It includes a long list of the chapter’s local activities, such as regular meetings, services at the East Shadowlawn Memorial Gardens and presentations to historical organizations.
The chapter raised the money and contracted the construction for the Lawrenceville monument, which was erected in 1993. The group paid for subsequent repairs to the monument, including after incidents of vandalism.
Two members of Camp No. 96, Wayne Bagwell and Wayne Stancel, are also listed as individual plaintiffs in the new suit, which notes that both men are Gwinnett County taxpayers and registered voters.
Should the court decide that the Sons of Confederate Veterans cannot sue over the Gwinnett monument, the case could still proceed with Bagwell and Stancel, said O’Toole.
“You’re supposed to show you have a stake in the local community,” O’Toole said. “These are not people who are casually passing through.”
Gwinnett County does not comment on pending litigation, said spokeswoman Deborah Tuff, who did not respond to inquiries about the monument’s location. County commissioners two years ago voted to place it in storage.
The monument consists of three granite slabs protruding from a base, similar to a tall gravestone. Carved in the granite are an early Confederate flag, a Confederate soldier, the dates 1861-1865, a quote from Winston Churchill and the words “LEST WE FORGET.”
The Sons of Confederate Veterans say the county violated a state law that restricts the removal of publicly owned historical or military monuments — including those that commemorate the Confederacy — and the removal of privately owned monuments from private property.
The ownership of the Lawrenceville monument became an issue in the previous lawsuit. The Sons of Confederate Veterans say the monument is publicly owned, while the county argued it was on public property but privately owned, and therefore not subject to the law.
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