Judge decides portrait may ‘impair the fair administration of justice’
By Peter Vieth
BridgeTower Media Newswires
RICHMOND, VA — A Louisa County judge has reversed his previous ruling and ordered removal of a portrait of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the back wall of the county courtroom.
Judge Timothy K. Sanner said he concluded “the level of controversy surrounding the image of Robert E. Lee is sufficiently intense that it is foreseeable that it may impair the fair administration of justice.”
“More importantly, given the significantly prevalent image of Robert E. Lee as a figure of racial hatred and prejudice, the Court is compelled to conclude that such image is unwelcoming to many of the African Americans, and others, who are compelled to appear in our courtroom as litigants, witnesses, jurors, attorneys and judges,” Sanner wrote in a Sept. 10 letter opinion.
The decision comes as the legal community increasingly confronts how commonplace symbols of the Confederacy in and around Virginia courthouses might cast a pall of prejudice over court proceedings.
The portrait issue arose in the case of Dacel Murphy, a Black man facing a Sept. 28 trial for the 2016 murder of a Louisa County man. Murphy’s attorneys argued he was unlikely to get a fair trial in a courtroom where the jury would be facing a six-foot high tribute to a champion of the Confederacy.
On Nov. 15, Sanner declined to act on the portrait, saying it was a decision better made by the county’s board of supervisors. The board did not act, however.
“The Court continues to believe that matters of this nature would be best addressed by the people’s elected representatives,” Sanner wrote, but he discerned the county was not likely to act in time for the Murphy trial.
County Attorney Helen Phillips had advised Commonwealth’s Attorney Rusty McGuire in a July 15 letter that state law implies that the judge, not the supervisors, had the authority to remove the Lee portrait, according to The Central Virginian.
Sanner said he was aware of changes in the perception of Confederate symbols since he last spoke to the issue.
“While Robert E. Lee’s place in history has been controversial, undoubtedly, for some time, the tenor of that debate has changed remarkably in the ten months which have passed since the Court last addressed the issue,” Sanner wrote.
Sanner directed the county to remove the Lee portrait and an accompanying plaque by Sept. 23.
“The portrait thereafter shall be exhibited in such location and manner as best determined by the County of Louisa,” Sanner’s order read.
Sanner allowed three portraits of Confederate officers with Louisa County connections to remain in the courtroom. He found nothing “iconic” about the honorees or their portraits, and said it would be difficult to discern their Confederate connection, even on close inspection.
Murphy’s defense team said it welcomed the decision.
“After two years of litigation over the portrait, we are elated that our client ... will no longer face trial in a courtroom that chooses to honor those who would oppress him solely because of the color of his skin,” read a statement released by attorneys Doug Ramseur, Matthew Engle and Richard Johnson.
“Every member of the Louisa community who has come into that courtroom for the past century has been faced with this unwelcome symbol of prejudice and hatred,” the statement continued. “The fact that it was allowed to remain in a place of prominence for so long is indicative of the systemic racism that we can no longer tolerate in a just society.”
Virginia judges have been confronted with the impact of Confederate symbols for years. An Alexandria judge removed a Confederate flag from his courtroom in 1967, according to a longtime lawyer in that city. Judges have banished icons of secession in Stafford, Patrick and Pittsylvania counties over the years.
On Sept. 21, a Giles County judge may consider a motion to reduce a jury’s recommended sentence based in part on an argument that a jury that enters the courthouse under a Confederate statute cannot be expected to apply statewide sentencing standards.
The jury in February set a 30-year sentence for Melvin Chapman, a Black man convicted of third-offense distribution of methamphetamine.
