The Louisiana Supreme court maintains an attractive WEB PAGE that provides all sorts of information. Among other things, there are these handy features:
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT the COURT;
There’s even a link to the ATTORNEY DISCIPLINARY BOARD, the board that hears complaints about attorneys’ professional and private practices and metes out punishment ranging from required counseling to disbarment.
That can be a good thing in case you’re looking for an attorney to represent you. You wouldn’t want to hire legal counsel who has a nasty habit of showing up drunk in court or who doesn’t ever get around to dispensing monetary awards to clients or worse, someone who neglects a case until it prescribes.
And the court’s DECISION and RULES link can be especially brutal. It lists each individual case and goes into minute detail in laying out every charge against an attorney, no matter how personal, and then announces to the world what the Supreme Court deems to be an appropriate punishment.
Woe unto any attorney who gets caught DRIVING UNDER the INFLUENCE or who forgets to PAY HIS TAXES.
Of course, the same goes for judges found guilty of judicial misconduct, right?
Well, to borrow a phrase from an old Hertz car rental commercial: not exactly.
There is a JUDICIARY COMMISSION and it does investigate and resolve complaints against judges—or so it says.
There’s even a handy-dandy JUDICIAL COMPLAINT FORM for anyone with a beef against a judge.
But try as you might, there doesn’t seem to be a link that lists actual complaints and actions taken against judges by the Judiciary Commission. An oversight, we were sure.
So, we placed a call to the Supreme Court. Surely, there was someone there who could direct us to the proper link so that we might know the status of say, one JEFF PERILLOUX, Judge of the 40th Judicial District in St. John the Baptist Parish.
Perilloux, 51, was suspended by the State Supreme Court following his indictment on charges he sexually assaulted three teenaged girls, friends of his daughter, while on a family vacation in Florida.
This is the same Judge Perilloux who, while a parish prosecutor in 2010, was arrested for DWI. In that incident, he threatened a State Trooper, falling back on the time-honored “Do you know who I am?” ploy, advising the trooper that, “I am the parish attorney. I’m not some lowlife.” Good to know, sir. Here’s your ticket.
Then there are the two judges from IBERVILLE PARISH who were suspended in 2016.
And who can forget the judges caught up in the OPERATION WRINKLED ROBE federal investigation?
Well, apparently, the Louisiana Supreme Court’s Judiciary Commission has no problem forgetting those cases. Or at least ignoring them. Try finding any mention of those on the Supreme Court’s information-laden web page.
So, we made a call to the Supreme Court.
But, alas, we encountered the old familiar stone wall when we inquired into the status of investigations into judicial misconduct. The person to whom we spoke did offer to direct us to the judicial complaint form so we had to explain a second time that we did not wish to file a complaint but instead, wanted to find information about action taken against wayward judges.
“We don’t release that information,” we were told. “The only way that gets publicized is if the media finds out about it.”
“But, but, but, you list attorney disciplinary action…It seems the public has as much right to know about judicial discipline as about attorney discipline—maybe even more of a right.”
“We don’t release information on judges.”
Here is the relevant rule applicable to records:
Rule XXIII, Section 23(a) of the Rules of this Court be and is hereby amended to read as follows:
Section 23.
(a) All documents filed with, and evidence and proceedings before the judiciary commission are confidential. The commission may provide documents, evidence and information from proceedings to the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board in appropriate cases when approved by this court. In such cases, the confidentiality provisions of La. S. Ct. Rule XIX, Section 16A shall be maintained. The record filed by the commission with this court and proceedings before this court are not confidential.
In the event a judge who has received notice of an anticipated judiciary commission filing in accordance with Rule XV of the rules of the judiciary commission, moves in advance of the filing to place any or all of the anticipated judiciary commission filing under seal, the judiciary commission shall file under seal its recommendations, findings of fact and conclusions of law, the transcript of the proceedings, and exhibits. The filing shall remain under seal until such time as the court has acted upon the judge’s motion.
Which, I guess, is just another way of saying, “We take care of our own.”
The Disciplinary Counsel is politically swayed as badly as judges are. Follow the money, therein lies their decisions. I filed an extremely valid complaint against a Shreveport attorney who broke a multitude of the Louisiana Bar Association’s Rules of Conduct and Ethics. The Board had ruled in my favor until the attorney’s malpractice insurance commissioned a bully (extremely large, invested, influential) firm who made some phone calls to their connections within the State Bar Association that, by the way, funds the Disciplinary Council and its board. And voila, POOF, the plethora of charges of malfeasance vanished, magically dismissed.
So no, I am not surprised at all that this so-called accountability front, Bar funded through attorney-driven dues and donations, failed to deliver the facts on the Perilloux charges.
I guess on analogy is the legislative branch imposing strictures on the executive branch it exempts itself from. As Mel Brooks would say, “It’s good to be the king.”
Of Course the Judges are political, they are elected. I was naïve and rather ignorant until the Republicans sold our souls and our Democracy. ( to Corporate America and Russia) Money and Poontang? always win but keep learning and our Nation will survive. Keep learning. ron thompson