Little’s Attorney Ventures into New Legal Territory with Silent Sam and Constitution

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Last week, Maya Little, the UNC graduate student who doused Silent Sam and its pedestal in red paint and her blood in April, faced the charge of defacing a public monument at the Orange County Courthouse.

“There aren’t really a lot of cases like this litigated yet,” said her attorney Scott Holmes, a law professor at North Carolina Central University. “So this is all kind of new in the law.”

Maya Little was found guilty by District Court Judge Samantha Cabe, who continued judgement rather than entering it, meaning Little has not been issued a punishment.

Holmes contended that the University’s endorsement of Silent Sam’s presence violated the Equal Protection Clause in the Constitution, in the same manner in which it would be unconstitutional for the University to endorse a religion because of the Establishment Clause.

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With each witness, Holmes tried to build a case that Little’s actions — dousing the statue and its pedestal in red paint and her blood — were justified under the necessity defense, which asserts that citizens can violate laws that contradict the big-picture wishes of the Constitution.

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Holmes linked Little’s case to that of the Friendship Nine, a group of black men who were arrested for staging a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in South Carolina in 1961.

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Holmes said he noted comparisons in the cases to argue that Little’s charges were the same sort of situation, civil disobedience that would be considered favorably in the eyes of history, like the illegal assistance northerners gave to slaves on the Underground Railroad, a violation of the Fugitive Slave Act.

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“What I’m trying to argue in the Confederate monument case is that this is a similar situation in which the government participates in speech that is discriminatory,” he said.

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“The courts have held under equal protection that you have to show some discriminatory harm being done to the person, beyond just expressive harm or stigmatic harm,” he said.

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Not convinced the University’s endorsement of the statue was harmful enough to justify Little’s actions, Cabe found her guilty. However, she withheld on issuing her a judgement and a penalty.

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She said she couldn’t find that Little’s crimes met the definition of necessity because of the requirement that civil disobedience must immediately protect the public to be justified.

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Little will next face UNC Honor Court charges on Oct. 25-26.