Can a lawyer, or a budding lawyer understand this law, and tell me if the a city, or town cannot remove a monument because of this statue.
I am not admitted in Florida, but “or other structure or thing placed or designed for a memorial of the dead” is rather clear language.
But defense counsel would object the statute was only designed to protect cemeteries, not general memorial statues such as found in public parks where the person so memorialized is not interred.
Think statute would get the State an indictment, but would fail on a judges interpretation of legislative intent, of which I would agree.
Don’t like it, but there it is.
This applies to monuments or markers that have human remains in or under them. However, if you go through the proper channels, you can get permission (after giving public notice and looking for heirs) to move them. So it’s not much protection even for monuments that have human remains, unless some loony decides not to wait for the City Commission to approve it and just tries to dig it up on his own. That’s illegal, but going through the channels to remove them isn’t.
We have a monument in my town that they want to remove because the person whose ashes are under the marker was a Confederate General, among many other things. The other is a monument to the dead from this town, all of them old family names of families that are still here, with nary a Confederate symbol on it. But a local minister is claiming that he’s intimidated by it every time he sees it, so I’m afraid its end is nigh.