Last July I published my book Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption.
Now, it looks as though a book about district attorneys and judges might well be in order.
Somehow, it seems the ones we elect to protect us and to administer justice evenly and fairly are running amok with no regard for the law, ethics, propriety, or for the citizens they are elected to serve.
This is by no means a blanket condemnation of all DAs or judges but the behavior of the few is beginning to take its toll on the public image of the many and there needs to be a cleansing.
DAs have gone to jail, they have initiated frivolous disputes with judges, they bring in hired guns from elsewhere to do jobs they should be doing [if they and their staffs aren’t qualified to perform their jobs, they should get out and leave the work to those who can] and some even are said to use their offices as leverage to obtain property and businesses from defendants in exchange for a dismissal or reduction of pending charges.
Louisiana judges have been accused of:
- Hiring his GIRLFRIEND to review medical records for his office;
- Presiding over his girlfriend’s DWI case;
- Molesting TEENAGE GIRLS;
- Texting RACIST REMARKS in a jealous dispute with a sheriff’s deputy with whom she was having an affair (the judge submitted her resignation today);
- Engaging in SEXUAL MISCONDUCT which led to his resignation;
- Interfering in a female friend’s APPEAL which resulted in his suspension from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal and which has thrown the 2nd Circuit’s overturn of a $20 million award into turmoil.
- Accepting kickbacks which resulted in the impeachment and REMOVAL from the federal bench.
- Accepting bribes from bail a bail bondsman which resulted in his conviction, along with 13 others convicted in the FBI’s OPERATION WRINKLED ROBE
There are others, of course. But add to that the unique idea that a Baton Rouge attorney who has been SUSPENDED FROM PRACTICE for a year is a candidate for a vacant city.
Donald Dobbins says the law requires only that he hold a law license to qualify for judicial office but not to be a judge because judges cannot practice law. He qualified exactly three weeks before he was suspended by the State Supreme Court for failure “to provide competent representation to clients” and that he “neglected legal matters, failed to communicate with clients, failed to refund unearned fees and unused costs, failed to properly supervise his non-lawyer start, resulting inf false affidavits being filed in the court record, failed to reduce a contingency fee agreement to writing, forged client signatures on settlement checks and failed to place disputed funds in his trust account.” He says he has no intention to withdraw.
One Supreme Court justice called the one-year suspension “overly lenient,” saying he preferred “no less than a three-year actual suspension, if not disbarment.”
And then there are the judges in Terrebonne and St. Tammany parishes who took it upon themselves to issue warrants that were in direct violation of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of expression.
In the Terrebonne case, Sheriff Jerry Larpenter prevailed upon an obliging JUDGE RANDAL BETHANCOURT to issue a search warrant so he could raid the home of a blogger who hurt Larpenter’s feelings. That ended up costing the sheriff’s office about $250,000 in a federal lawsuit stemming from the illegal raid.
That was in August 2016. Three years later, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith arrested a former deputy who sent an email to the family of a murdered woman in which he was critical of the sheriff’s office for not making an arrest in the 2017 murder of Nanette Krentel.
The warrant was signed by DISTRICT JUDGE RAYMOND CHILDRESS District Judge Raymond Childress. After the local district attorney recused himself and referred the case to the Louisiana Attorney General’s office, the AG’s office promptly washed its hands of the entire affair after noting that the Louisiana Supreme Court had held that criminal defamation (the justification for the warrant) was unconstitutional insofar as statements made in reference to public figures engaged in public affairs.
No story about law enforcement and the judicial system would be complete without a story from Iberia Parish where Louis Ackel turned the word sheriff into a term of fear and dread.
Bo Duhé, 16th JDC District Attorney, crossed swords with Judge Lori Landry by accusing her of making accusatory remarks to the effect that the DA’s office “deliberately incarcerate African Americans more severely and at a higher rate than others” and that the DAs office knew or should have known about misconduct at the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office that eventually led to the convictions of several deputies in a civil rights case.
Her remarks prompted Duhé to seek her honor’s removal from more than 300 criminal cases throughout out the 16th JDC which includes the parishes of Iberia, St. Martin, and St. Mary.
Duhé, of course, claimed that Judge Landry’s remarks were unfounded. He further argued that Landry, the 16th JDC’s first African-American judge, was “biased and prejudiced” against his office to such an extent that “she cannot be fair or impartial.”
After considerable posturing disguised as testimony in court subsequent hearings, Duhé and Landry kissed and made nice, declaring that they were recommitted to working together and the DA’s office rather unceremoniously dismissed the recusal motions.
Just another day in Louisiana’s hallowed halls of justice.
[You may order Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption ($30) by clicking on the yellow DONATE button in the column to the upper right of this post or by sending a check to Tom Aswell, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, LA. 70727.]
Louisiana Voice 
Great book Tom! I enjoyed reading it twice! Keep your finger on them.
Sent from my iPhone
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I have often wondered why we draw up judicial districts that assure that a black judge is elected. It implies one of two things (to me anyway); that white judges are not fair to minorities or that black judges will be more favorable to minorities, both of which are bad and inclines one to believe the judicial process is not fair at all.
Zoe, as a committee attorney for the Louisiana House of Representatives and as a staff member of a judicial selection task force, I was in the middle of the litigation brought by black attorneys seeking the opportunity to be elected as judges. The litigation was brought forth by the plaintiffs pursuant to the Voting Rights Act. The VRA, in general terms, provides that voters must be given the opportunity to elect their representatives. Notice the name of the act, Voting Rights, thus is pertains to voters, not those running for office. Even though I am black, I disagreed with the court’s interpretation that the VRA applied to the election of judges. Judges are not representatives of the people. Anyway, the drawing of the sub-districts in various judicial districts had nothing to do with judicial fairness. They were drawn to give the voters an opportunity to elect black judges.
The districts were drawn partially in response to decades of deliberate efforts to exclude minority voters or to neutralize their votes; the historical experience that showed that white voters simply would not vote for minorities for judicial office; and the evidence that the State had, for a long period of time, had violated the civil rights voting act by failing to preclear certain changes to the election process. So, sort of remedial I guess.
I’m not sure that white judges are not fair to minorities nor am I sure that black judges are unfailingly favorable to minorities, but what I do know is this: We do elect individuals as judges both for their professional qualifications as well as what we perceive their character to be. If the individual characteristics of the various judges do not or should not make any difference, then it should not matter who is elected judge – we could just have automatons which would mechanistically try to apply the law. But a good argument exists that different judges from different backgrounds could, perhaps, bring different approaches and methods and understandings to segments of the community. “Diversity” if you will.
Other jurisdictions in this country view with horror Louisiana’s approach to electing judges from representative districts. Judges, they argue, should not be representative of any particular constituency, but should be answerable to the law only. These are substantial arguments but I suggest, that as long as we in Louisiana have the representative approach to selecting judges, it is understandable that we should continue to try to ensure that a substantial segment of the community has their life outlook represented.
The system is not perfect but we have to do what we can.
Spartacus, I have to disagree with certain parts of your post. While congressional districts and legislative districts may be and have been drawn to dilute, diminish, or neutralize the minority vote, judicial districts were not. Judicial districts are composed of one or more parishes, not parts of parishes. As for preclearance, Louisiana has long been required to submit changes to its election laws to the United States Department of Justice for preclearance. (I believe this requirement has been pared back a little.) I am not aware of any time in which the state did not comply with that requirement. I am not sure if the state had to submit the creation of a new judicial district. During my time working for the House, I think I was involved in creating one new judicial district. I don’t remember if it had to be submitted. I am also not sure if the state had to submit the creation of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals or the new district of the Supreme Court. The drawing of the sub-districts accomplished two things, in my opinion. It provided minority voters with an opportunity to elect a minority judicial candidate and it has brought diversity to the judicial system. A judicial system reflective of our society. So, I guess you can say “representative” of our society.
Don’t disagree with much of what you had to say and I don’t disagree with what you had to say about the creation of these sub-districts. I think it was the best solution to the problem. But….the State did fail to comply with the Voting Rights act and this failure (among other allegations) was the driving force behind the lawsuit which lead to the creation of the subdistricts by the legislature. This was back in the 80s, maybe before your time. And you are correct, the requirements have changed now (regarding pre-clearance). But the litigation was the reason the legislature did this. Do you really believe that these districts would have created absent some sort of legal coercion? Part of what opened the door to the pre-clearance argument was the creation of various courts of limited jurisdiction in parts of the state; the modification of jurisdiction; the granting of criminal jurisdiction to the several Courts of Appeal (previously the Courts of Appeal had only civil jurisdiction) and a few other things which escape me now. These are details which don’t do violence, however, to what you had to say.
And a big problem is all complaints against judges are hidden and the public can not access that information!
In 1991, in two cases, the US Supreme Court ruled that Section 2 of the VRA applied to the election of judges. One of the cases was Chisom v Roemer and the other case was out of Texas. The US 5th Circuit had ruled, in both cases, that Section 2 did not apply. In response to Chisom and Clark v. Edwards, Roemer appointed a 32-member task force. I was fortunate enough to be one of 5 staff members. We presented the task force with the history of the VRA, the history of the litigation, and research on various methods of electing judges. There were days of testimony from all who wanted to speak. The task force was charged with coming up with a solution to present to the plaintiffs in hope of settling the lawsuits. As you can well understand, 32 people could not come to a consensus on either of the three plans we submitted. I agree that the sub-districts was the best solution. However, the failure to preclear laws enacted to create judicial districts and provide for election of those judges was not the reason for the lawsuits. At that time Section 5, the preclearance requirement, had not been applied to judicial elections. Judicial districts are not carved out by population. They are composed of one or more parishes.
I yield to you. Seems that you are eminently qualified.
Thank you, but I wonder what’s going to happen in Terrebonne Parish. The parish leadership is leading the charge against the drawing of sub-districts. Correct me if I am wrong, I think the courts have ordered sub-districts to be drawn.