ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Maryland's speaker of the House is calling for the removal of a Confederate statue of the Supreme Court justice who wrote a decision upholding slavery that sits on the front law of the statehouse.
The Baltimore Sun reports that Michael E. Busch said Monday the monument to former Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (TAW nee) "doesn't belong" at the State House in Annapolis.
Taney, a Maryland native, wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision that upheld slavery and denied citizenship to black people.
Busch, a Democrat, made his remarks after hundreds of protesters gathered in Charlottesville over the weekend to decry a gathering of white supremacists to rally against plans to remove a Confederate statue. A woman was killed when a car plowed into a crowd.