COVINGTON, Ga. — The lone individual allowed to continue a challenge to Newton County's planned removal of a 116-year-old monument to Confederate soldiers in Covington said she and her supporters were "thrilled with the Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling" allowing her to continue her two-year effort.  

"Our case will now be tried on the facts and the law," said Covington resident Tiffany Humphries Tuesday, Oct. 25.

"There were some very loud voices, that for a time, overshadowed all others," Humphries said. "Today’s decision is proof that our system works."

The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the state Court of Appeals' dismissal of a Sons of Confederate Veterans' lawsuit to keep the Confederate statue standing in the middle of the Covington Square Tuesday morning — but also reversed the Appeals Court's dismissal of Humphries' complaint, seemingly allowing her lawsuit to continue back at the Superior Court level.

According to the ruling published by the state Supreme Court Tuesday morning, the court determined that because the Sons of Confederate Veterans groups “have not shown that they are members of the communities” wherein the lawsuits were made — the group also had a dismissed lawsuit for similar removal of a Confederate monument in Henry County — there was no standing for the group to make its claims.

The second lawsuit in question, however, came from Humphries. And, according to the published ruling, Humphries “has standing to sue her county government.” It was on that premise that the Court reversed the initial Court of Appeals’ dismissal of Humphries’ claim. 

The Supreme Court's ruling did not address the validity of the claims, but rather the legal right for each party to sue.

“This case is about a highly controversial subject: whether local communities must continue displaying and maintaining at public expense, monuments that celebrate the Confederacy and its long-dead supporters, despite those communities finding such celebration repugnant,” Presiding Justice Nels S.D. Peterson said in a written statement published on the gasupreme.us website. 

“But nothing about those monuments is at issue in this appeal,” he continued. 

The part of this case local to Newton County began when Humphries filed a complaint for damages and injunctive relief against the Newton County Board of Commissioners almost one week after the Sons of Confederate Veterans filed its grievance to the Henry County Board of Commissioners in July 2020 after that board voted to remove a Confederate monument from the McDonough square. 

Humphries’ complaint stated that the Newton County Board of Commissioners was going to “hold an expedited vote” to remove the Confederate statue from the center of the Covington Square. The Newton County Board then voted to remove the monument the day after Humphries’ complaint, and that’s when the General George “Tig” Anderson Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans filed a complaint similar to Humphries' document.

The two lawsuits in Newton County were consolidated and dismissed due to the plaintiffs’ claims for damages not being justified since the statue in Covington’s square had not been removed. Soon after, the trial court also issued a stay that prevented Newton County from removing the statue.

“Because damages are authorized only for conduct prohibited by the statute (Georgia Code § 50-3-1(b)), and the statute does not prohibit a vote to remove a monument in the future, Humphries cannot seek damages here,” Peterson wrote in the published statement. 

But though the Court did not uphold a claim for damages, Humphries' case for challenging the planned removal still seemed to be intact, by virtue of her residing in Newton County. 

Humphries said today she would "like to thank everyone who stood up alongside me" as the case went through the courts.

"I could not have done this alone. It took a number of freedom-loving people to give of their time and talents to raise the money to appear before the Supreme Court," she said. "I remain grateful for their support."

Attempts to reach out to representatives of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Newton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Marcello Banes did not immediately garner response.

Stay tuned to covnews.com as we update this story throughout the day.

News Editor Tom Spigolon contributed to this report.