Louisiana Voice

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, there Jerry Larpenter goes again.

Larpenter, the controversial sheriff and apparent strong man of Terrebonne Parish, seems to make decisions on the fly, a-la Donald Trump, about what is and what is not illegal in his parish, established laws be damned. And make no mistake, he is convinced it’s his parish.

Larpenter’s most recent dust-up is over the provision of security in the parish courthouse—which he refuses to do despite laws on the books that clearly say that is part of his job.

The result of his refusal is that the Houma Police Department is now performing security at the Terrebonne Parish governmental building and parish courthouse—all with the blessings of Parish President/Environmental Watchdog Gordon Dove GORDON DOVE.

Dove, while serving in the State Legislature as Chairman, of all things, of the House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment, managed to get one of his companies, Vacco Marine, Inc., cited on several occasions by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), a feat almost impossible to accomplish in Louisiana. Another company, Dual Trucking, was cited by the Montana Department of Environmental Equality for dumping radioactive waste from the nearby Bakken Oilfield in neighboring North Dakota.

Rumor has it—and this is strictly the word on the street, which more often than not, has more than a grain of truth to it—that 32^nd Judicial District Court Judge Randal Bethancourt wanted more security details assigned to the courthouse in beautiful downtown Houma.

This is the same Judge Bethancourt who, apparently without consulting a law book about probable cause or the First Amendment, signed off on a warrant that allowed the high sheriff to come calling on an Internet blogger sometime around dawn to seize computers, cellphones and other electronic equipment—for no other reason than he was pissed because the blogger said some uncomplimentary things about him and the political establishment of Terror-bonne Parish.

To read the LouisianaVoice story of the infamous Free Speech Raid, click HERE.

After a federal court ruled the raid and seizure of the electronic equipment unconstitutional, the blogger, Houma policeman Wayne Anderson and his wife filed suit against the sheriff who SETTLED out of court for an unknown but substantial sum.

Apparently, if the scuttlebutt is correct, Larpenter said no to the request for additional security and he and His Honor got into something akin to a minor verbal war that ended with Larpenter telling Bethancourt that it was the judge’s fault that he, Larpenter, had to lay out some major cash on the Andersons, forgetting, apparently, that it was he, not the good judge, who asked for the search warrant in the first place.

Larpenter must have also forgotten for the moment that he didn’t have to pay a dime of the judgement—or his attorney bills. Those were covered by his office’s liability insurance policy.

But hey, we already said Larpenter thinks and acts a lot like Trump so this is validation of that descriptive analysis.

And just as with the raid on the Andersons was unconstitutional, Larpenter’s refusal to provide courthouse security appears to be at loggerheads with what the law says his duties are.

State statutes leave little wiggle room when they say:

• “Court criers are to be provided by the sheriff of each parish to each district judge.”
• “The crier of a court (notice this is not restricted to Orleans) shall attend all sessions thereof, under the direction of the judge shall open and close court at each session, and maintain order and decorum in the court room, and shall perform such other duties as are assigned to him by law, the court, or the sheriff.” (emphasis added)
• “Each sheriff or deputy shall attend every court that is held in his parish…”
• “Security in the courthouse is the responsibility of governing authority (Gordon Dove), but an agreement may be made between the parish officers and the building to share the expenses.”
• “The principal functions of the criminal sheriff are that of being keeper of parish jail and executive officer of the Criminal District Court.”

And then there is Opinion 12-0187 of the Louisiana Attorney General’s office dated Feb. 7, 2013 which says in part:

“…security provided in the courthouse is the responsibility of the parish governing authority under this statutory regime…” and that “…the governing body of the parish shall pay to the sheriff or his deputies attending upon the sessions of their respective courts of appeal and district courts…” Click HERE to read the full opinion:

Even the Texas Judicial Council addressed the issue in a 2016 REPORT on Court Security. Of course, policies in Texas and other states have no bearing on what Louisiana policy regarding courthouse/courtroom security. Still, it’s significant to note that the report says:

“The sheriff in each county is responsible for providing courthouse security.5 The municipal governing body is responsible for doing so in municipal court buildings. While the judiciary itself does not have responsibility or authority for providing court security, it is often in the position to advocate for appropriate security to ensure that individuals in the courts are not threatened as they seek access to justice. In addition, sheriffs and municipalities are not generally responsible for providing direct security to judges and court personnel when they are away from a courthouse, unless specific circumstances warrant such. Rather, it is judges and court personnel who are responsible for ensuring their own safety.”

All of which, of course, means exactly nothing to Larpenter. After all, he makes up his own laws and who are we—or judges, for that matter—to question that authority?