AUGUSTA, Maine — Officials in Kennebec County are in the preliminary stages of discussing the future of a statue that stands in front of the Kennebec County Courthouse.
The statue of Maine-born Chief Justice to the United States Supreme Court Melville Weston Fuller was erected in 2013.
Fuller was born in 1833 in Augusta and he served as a Supreme Court Justice for more than two decades, from 1888 to 1910.
His complicated legacy is rooted in how he voted in the landmark 'Plessy vs. Ferguson' case from 1896. Chief Justice Fuller decided with the majority in declaring racial segregation constitutional under the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine.
Maine Supreme Court Justice Joseph Jabar tells NEWS CENTER Maine that there is a "preliminary discussion" happening among Kennebec county officials about whether to keep the statue where it is.
Jabar says with everything going on across the country right now, it's no longer appropriate to celebrate Justice Fuller's legacy.
“I personally think it should come down,” says Jabar. “It represents an administration, in which the Chief Justice was Fuller, that rendered the decision of Plessy vs. Ferguson.”
Speaking to C-SPAN in 2012, Justice Fuller's great great-grandnephew Robert Fuller describes the decision as one of the supreme courts great 'self-inflicted wounds.'
Robert Fuller says, “The justice who decided the case was Henry Billings Brown, but my ancestor joins in the majority opinion which established this odious doctrine of ‘separate vs. equal’.”
Robert Fuller says his research shows Justice Fuller's decision was made upon limiting federal government intrusion.
“The justice said the states had a right in determining what they wanted to do.”
The statue was an estimated $40,000 gift from Fuller’s decedent Robert Fuller. It's expected he will be part of the discussion over whether to remove it or keep it right where it is.
NEWS CENTER Maine reached out to all three of Kennebec County's commissioners. Commissioner Patsy Crockett is the only one we reached. Crockett emphasizes this discussion is in the “preliminary stages” and says she has not received any formal or written information yet about this.
She says she will wait to have more information about this situation and the Justice's history before making a formal statement on her opinion.