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 (9-meter) statue of a Confederate soldier on top of a pedestal that stands in front of the courthouse.
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."