State of Alabama v. City of Birmingham, [Ms. 1180342, Nov. 27, 2019] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. 2019). The Court (Bryan, J.; and Parker, C.J., Shaw, Wise, Sellers, Mendheim, Stewart, and Mitchell, JJ., concur; Bolin, J., concurring specially) reverses a summary judgment entered by the Jefferson Circuit Court in favor of the City of Birmingham and its mayor, which held § 41-9-232, Ala. Code 1975 (the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act), unconstitutional because it violated the City's purported rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and was thus void in its entirety. The Court instead finds the City defendants' actions in erecting a plywood barrier around an 1894 Confederate Veterans Memorial statue in Birmingham's Linn Park violated § 41-9-232(a), a part of the Act, which provides "no ... monument which is located on public property and has been so situated for 40 or more years may be relocated, removed, altered, renamed, or otherwise disturbed." Because the erection of the plywood barrier altered and/or disturbed the monument, the City defendants violated the statute and were obliged to pay a single $25,000 fine as required by the Act's penalty provision, § 41-9-235(a)(2)d.
