Louisiana Voice

With no need to comment or embellishment, I offer the latest observations of historian Heather Cox Richardson.

Heather Cox Richardson employs facts and history to make observations about contemporary American politics. She has written about the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the American West in award-winning books whose subjects stretch from the European settlement of the North American continent to the history of the Republican Party through the Trump administration. She is the author, most recently, of the best-selling Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America.

In the link below, the infamous Wheeling, W. Va. speech of June 1, 1950, exactly 76 years ago, that gave the world McCarthyism was delivered, setting the U.S. on a course of fever-pitched pandemonium that left innocent lives and careers in ruin.

Click on the link and listen and draw your own comparisons between the hysteria of McCarthyism and today’s political climate.

If you’ve ever wondered why we as a society have a diminishing respect for our system of justice, there are ample examples of why that confidence level is eroding.

Beginning with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ridiculous 2010 ruling so affectionately known as Citizens United to the glut of pardons of criminals by the Trump administration to the way in which Louisiana courts manhandled the civil rights of former attorney Ashton O’Dwyer to the manner in which family court matters are handled in heavy-handed secrecy to the most recent ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court in the trial of one of the defendants in the tragic death of Madison Brooks, the evidence is there for all to see.

O’Dwyer was a prominent New Orleans attorney who was literally railroaded into oblivion by an obliging Louisiana Supreme Court in a concerted effort by other attorneys, including the then-Louisiana Attorney General, to block him from seeking class-action damages on behalf of victims of Hurricane Katrina as a result of negligence in construction and maintenance of the levees built to protect New Orleans from flooding. He was beaten, tased, fired upon with rubber pellets, imprisoned and otherwise abused by State Police and ultimately disbarred from the practice of law because he refused to pay unjust financial penalties.

Family courts are rife with examples of abuse by presiding judges, even to the extent of deliberately overcharging those unfortunate enough to end up before them exorbitant charges for copies of court documents needed to support their cases.

One need only peruse campaign contributions for most judges to understand the existence of at least the appearance of impropriety. Their campaign financial reports are heavily-weighted with contributions from attorneys who practice before them. In one case, LouisianaVoice found a judge, Dawn Amacker of the 22^nd JDC (St. Tammany and Washington parishes), whose report shows that 73.2 percent of her campaign contributions of $500 or more were from attorneys. Another report, that of Pam Baker of the East Baton Rouge Parish Family Court, was even more eye-opening, with 87.4 percent of all donations of $500 or more coming from attorneys.

The obvious response to that is what would you expect? Judges preside over attorneys; they’re all in the business of the courts.

Exactly. That’s precisely the reason LouisianaVoice has long maintained that judges should not be allowed to accept contributions from attorneys. The same logic should apply to the Public Service Commission; its members should not be allowed to accept contributions from the utilities they regulate. Nor should the Louisiana Insurance Commissioner be allowed to accept contributions from the insurance industry it regulates. And the Louisiana Attorney General? Well, the individual holding that office doesn’t oversee or otherwise regulate attorneys, per se, but the attorney general awards literally millions of dollars in contracts to attorneys to represent the state in litigation. So, does the attorney general tend to reward favored attorneys or law firms? You bet. It’s Louisiana politics in its purest form. Even Attorney General Liz Murril’s own husband’s firm has generous state contracts.

So, having said all that, it has a bad look when the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned two other courts and ruled that a judge in the Madison Brooks rape should not have been removed from the case despite a defendant’s having texted family members that the judge was a family friend and would be sympathetic to his case.

Casen John Carver is on trial for rape in the matter. Brooks, at the time of the January 2023 incident, was a student at LSU. She was allegedly raped in a moving vehicle before being dropped off and subsequently struck and killed by a passing car.

Carver is from Denham Springs and was one of four males in the vehicle when prosecutors say she was sexually assaulted.

Carver texted family members that Judge Gail Horne Ray was a friend to the family and that she had a family member who also had been accused of rape, so she would be sympathetic to his case. That 2023 text read, “And the judge we are getting, I think u know about but we are friends with her and she is really good for our case. Her son was accused of rape a while back so she knows to help us.”

Ray’s son, Nelson Dan Taylor Jr., 46, was convicted of two counts each of forcible rape and aggravated burglary in 1997. His mother was one of his trial attorneys, court records show.

Carver requested a bench trial rather than a jury trial, meaning he would have been tried before only a judge with there being no chance for a jury to decide his fate.

That, along with the text, would—or should—give ample justification for the presiding judge to recuse herself. Instead, fellow 19^th JDC JUDGE BRAD MYERS ruled that despite finding no evidence of bias on Judge Ray’s part, Carver’s statements were “particularly concerning” and that the recusal was necessary to “safeguard public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”

A check of Judge Ray’s political campaign finance reports shows that Carver’s attorney, Joe Long, contributed $1000 to her campaign on Nov. 10, 2022—a couple of months before Brooks died.

Still, the Supreme Court’s reversal would have us believe there was no reason for recusal, that there is no appearance of impropriety or conflict. So much for “safeguard[ing] public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”

Which, again, underscores the reason for the decline in faith of our judicial system.

THE LOUISIANA COURTHOUSE IN A GRAVEYARD

(The Aftermath of the Colfax Massacre)

By guest columnist Charles “Chick” Moore

In the aftermath of the Civil War and the emancipation of enslaved people, Louisiana entered a period of political turmoil and violence, particularly surrounding elections and the right of formerly enslaved Black citizens to vote. The election of 1872 was marked by fraud, intimidation, and violence throughout the state.

In Grant Parish, with Colfax as the parish seat, both the Republican and Democratic (Fusionist) parties claimed victory in the local election for parish offices, including sheriff and district judge. The Republican Party supported suffrage and civil rights for formerly enslaved people. The Democrats sought a return to white supremacy and the prewar social order to the extent possible.

At the center of the dispute stood the parish courthouse, the center of governmental power in the parish. Initially occupied by Democrats, the courthouse was later taken by Republicans, who relied upon judicial rulings recognizing their claim to office. Democrats then organized plans to seize the courthouse by force, but word of the planned attack spread.

Under Louisiana law, the district judge instructed the sheriff to form a militia to protect the courthouse and public records from seizure. That militia was composed predominantly of Black men.

When Democrats learned that the courthouse was being defended, calls went out to surrounding parishes for armed assistance. By Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, a heavily armed white force had gathered outside Colfax. Anticipating attack, the defenders had dug a crescent-shaped trench from which they would to fight to defend the courthouse.

The attack began around noon. Initially there was a standoff, but the defenders were eventually forced to abandon their position when a small cannon was positioned so that it could fire directly into the trench. The courthouse—a repurposed plantation stable with brick walls and a cypress shingle roof—was then set on fire.

Later during the day, those captured, their hands tied behind their back, were executed, some of whom were told to stand close to each other so one bullet would result in two kills.

Governor William Kellogg, having learned of the developing crisis, dispatched a contingent of the Louisiana National Guard to Colfax. The troops arrived two days too late.

The official report of the National Guard described the courthouse grounds as strewn with the bodies of dead Black men. Orders were given to bury many of the bodies in the defensive trench dug around the courthouse. The report stated that fifty-four Black men were buried there.  Other reports have the number higher.

Only three white men were reported killed. Estimates of Black deaths ranged from approximately eighty to as many as one hundred fifty, the latter figure appearing on a Louisiana historical marker erected in 1951.

The killings were acts of racial and political terror intended both as punishment and as a warning. Black citizens were killed for exercising civil rights newly guaranteed after the Civil War, most importantly the right to vote and participate in government. The massacre became one of the defining events of Reconstruction-era violence in the South.

From the beginning, however, the presence of bodies buried in and around the courthouse square appears to have troubled the community.

In 1878, the Colfax Chronicle urged that the remains be removed because “they are at present in the way, besides being subjected to indignity and abuse that no one approves.” The suggestion was ignored.

After the original courthouse burned, court was temporarily held in mercantile buildings pending construction of a replacement courthouse. During construction of the new courthouse in 1878, the Chronicle reported that a skull and several bones were unearthed. The newspaper observed that “it looks bad to have these ghastly relics exhibited now and then,” referring to “that grinning cranium with a round bullet hole bored clear through it.”

The discoveries continued for generations.

On April 22, 1899, the Colfax Chronicle, in an article entitled “Only a Negro’s Bones,” reported that workmen digging a hole had uncovered the skull and bones of “one of the negroes killed in the Colfax riot 26 years ago.” The article stated:

“At once an idle and gaping crowd gathered, and several little boys exhibited ghoulish glee digging and scratching out the grim remains for inspection. True, it was only a negro’s bones, but common decency prompts that they be covered out of sight, and humanity dictates that the children should not be allowed to play the role of jackal and grave digger.”

The excavation was associated with construction of an artesian well in the courthouse square. Because the water was mixed with natural gas, the well later became known as the “Famous Burning Well of Colfax,” a local tourist attraction even featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

In 1902 another courthouse was constructed on the same site. In 1923, while workers were digging a ditch and repairing curbing near the courthouse square, another skeleton was unearthed. In 1927, during installation of water pipes, additional human remains were discovered and sent to Louisiana State University.

The discoveries continued even into modern times.

In 1965, while an addition to the present courthouse was under construction, workers excavating the foundation for the addition

unearthed bones that were collected by a twelve-year-old boy and later given to LSU. The Colfax Chronicle later described the reaction of the workers:

“The discovery [of bones] was so emotional, so much so that workers refused to continue digging. Human bones were human bones, and as far as the workers were concerned, they were laying the new courthouse’s foundation in a cemetery. And technically, they were.”

To this day, the burial site of the Black victims remains unmarked at the courthouse. Nothing on the courthouse grounds acknowledges either their deaths or their burial there.

The memory of the white dead, however, has long been preserved.

When the burial site of the man who fired the cannon at the courthouse reportedly fell into disrepair, the Grant Parish Police Jury voted to move his remains to the public cemetery and place a headstone and white picket fence around the grave.

Near the fiftieth anniversary of the massacre, the Police Jury funded approximately forty percent of the cost of a twelve-foot white marble obelisk dedicated to the “three heroes … who fell in the Colfax Riot fighting for White Supremacy.”

For many years, the courthouse square also contained a Louisiana historical marker referring to the event as the “Colfax Riot.” The marker stated:

“On this site occurred the Colfax Riot in which three white men and 150 negroes were slain. This event on April 13, 1873 marked the end of carpetbag misrule in the South.”

That marker was removed in 2021 after criticism from historians and others because it described the massacre as a “riot” and endorsed white supremacist interpretations of Reconstruction history. It has not been replaced. No marker identifies the burial ground beneath and around the courthouse.

Ironically, however, a historical marker was placed commemorating the now dead “Burning Well of Colfax.”

In recent years, Rev. Avery Hamilton, the great-grandson of the first Black man killed in the massacre, and Dean Woods, a descendant of one of the white participants, worked together to create a memorial honoring the victims. Their memorial stands not at the courthouse itself, but near the Kansas City Southern railroad right-of-way, removed from the courthouse grounds. Information regarding the memorial may be found at The Colfax Memorial.

More recently, the continued use of the courthouse as the seat of the 35^th Judicial District Court has raised a modern legal issue.

Louisiana law requires that a parish provide a building for the sitting of the district court, but the statute further requires that the building be “suitable” for that purpose. The question has therefore been raised whether a courthouse constructed in and around an unmarked mass grave resulting from racial violence is a “suitable” place for the administration of justice.

The massacre occurred more than 150 years ago, and present generations bear no responsibility for the acts committed in 1873. We are responsible, however, for how we respond to the continuing aftermath of those events and for the effect that the present condition of the courthouse grounds may have upon public confidence in the judicial system.

Courts derive their authority not merely from law, but from public trust in the fairness, impartiality, and integrity of the judicial process. It is axiomatic that justice must not only be fair and impartial but must also appear to be fair and impartial.

That principle raises a difficult but important question for Louisiana today: whether a court can properly administer justice while sitting in an unmarked mass grave created by one of the bloodiest acts of racial and political violence in American history.

Charles R. Moore