RICHMOND — The Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the state to remove the colossal statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Monument Avenue in Richmond.

       In unanimous rulings in two separate cases, the justices affirmed the power of Gov. Ralph Northam to order the 60-foot statue removed from state-owned property.

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       A small group of nearby residents and a descendant of the family that granted the property to the state more than 120 years ago had filed suit in Richmond Circuit Court last year after Northam (D) called for the statue’s removal. The statue had become the centerpiece of racial justice protests in Richmond and around the country triggered by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police.

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       The suits failed, but the plaintiffs appealed to the state’s high court.

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       In rejecting one of the appeals, the justices found that requirements built into the 1889 deed giving the site to the state, as well as language adopted by the General Assembly in 1890 authorizing the accepting of the property, no longer bind the state to preserve and protect the monument.

       The justices wrote that “those restrictive covenants are unenforceable as contrary to public policy and for being unreasonable because their effect is to compel government speech, by forcing the Commonwealth to express, in perpetuity, a message with which it now disagrees.”

       The General Assembly voted last year to change state law to make it easier for localities to take down Confederate memorials.

       This story is developing and will be updated.

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