Castleman statue case headed to Ky. Supreme Court

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - The saga of the John Castleman statue will have at least one more legal twist to resolve.

The Kentucky Supreme Court agreed to hear a final challenge to the statue’s removal in 2020.

The efforts to reinstall the Castleman statue in Cherokee Triangle have failed in court twice now.

“The Supreme Court picks and chooses, so that’s what makes us feel good about it,” attorney Steve Porter said.

At 79 years old, Porter will argue his first case in front of the Kentucky Supreme Court. He’s arguing Louisville’s Landmarks Commission screwed up when it voted to remove the John Castleman statue.

“We had city employees who voted on an application that was made by the city, that’s a pure conflict of interest,” Porter said.

It’s an argument that has failed twice now, most recently when the Kentucky Court of Appeals said it found no facts to support that claim.

However, the Kentucky Supreme Court chose to hear the case, hinting there is something it wants to resolve in the legal history of the statue’s removal. Views on Castleman’s history are still deeply divided.

“Little symbols of the Confederacy may have held us back into becoming what we can be,” one resident said.

“I think as a compassionate city we forgive people, we pardon people, we move on, that’s what we should have done here, and to drag this up a hundred years afterward I think is outrageous,” another resident said.

Porter said the Kentucky Supreme Court won’t debate Castleman’s history, that’s for historians. But the controversial, beloved, vandalized statue of a confederate, turned Louisville icon, could be placed here again if the Supreme Court finds Louisville did not follow the law.

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