The Alabama Attorney General’s Office is asking a judge to prevent the city of Birmingham from destroying or altering a Confederate monument in Linn Park while a court appeal plays out.

The AG’s office is appealing a recent court ruling that said Birmingham doesn’t have to take down its wooden screen that surrounds the Linn Park monument. In the ruling, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Graffeo ruled the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act — which prohibits local governments from altering historical monuments on public property — doesn’t have any legal authority.

After the judge issued his ruling, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said the monument’s future was unknown, as his team reviewed all available options.

“We believe the Court’s decision against the Memorial Preservation Act will be overturned due to the fact that it incorrectly assigns the right of free speech to a government subdivision (the City of Birmingham),” said Attorney General Steve Marshall in a news release today after his office asked a judge to issue a stay in the case.

Marshall’s office wrote in court records that a stay should be issued because the judge’s ruling could lead Birmingham or other cities “to believe it is legal to alter or destroy monuments” before the appeal is complete.

“…the state may suffer irreparable harm… (because) Historical monuments and buildings could be destroyed or altered in such a way that they cannot be rebuilt,” the AG’s motion for stay says.

Months after the monuments law was enacted, Birmingham’s then-mayor William Bell ordered the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Linn Park covered with plastic, and later plywood. Some people called for the removal of the statue, but Bell said he wouldn’t break the law.

Marshall’s office sued the city for violating the monuments law, which the city’s lawyers called “vague and ambiguous.” In his order, Graffeo said he "reluctantly" declared the act is void.

"Just as the state could not force any particular citizen to post a pro-Confederacy sign in his or her front lawn, so too can the state not commandeer the city's property for the state's preferred message," Graffeo wrote.

In court records, Marshall’s office said the state is likely to win on appeal.

“Federal constitutional law, recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court for over 100 years, is clear that ‘…a political subdivision, created by the state for the better ordering of government, has no privileges or immunities under the federal constitution which it may invoke in opposition to the will of its creator,’” Marshall said in a news release.

Marshall’s office also argued the stay should be granted because it’s “in the public interest” and won’t harm the city of Birmingham.

Graffeo said the act violates the Fourteenth Amendment because the state was seeking at least $25,000 in fines from the city and also seeks to control what the city can build on Linn Park, but the act offers no due process. The act allows cities to apply for a waiver on certain structures, but Birmingham could not apply for that waiver because the Linn Park monument is over 40 years old. That part of the law is “overbroad and unreasonable,” the judge said.

AL.com reporter Ivana Hrynkiw contributed to this story.