Louisiana Voice

While Attorney General Jeff Landry was simultaneously running for governor and peeking over the shoulders of children as they checked out library books, his office damn near let a man convicted of a triple killing in Lake Charles go free.

Landry, who also involved himself deeply in the stolen election conspiracy pushed by supporters of Donald Trump, apparently was too busy with his anti-abortion, anti-First Amendment, library book monitoring campaign for governor to dispatch anyone to the parole hearing for Thomas Frank Cisco, 54.

The 1997 murders of Stacie Reeves, 26, Marty LeBouef, 21, and Nicole Guidry, 14, went unsolved for more than a year before Cisco was arrested. He was tried and sentenced to death but his conviction was overturned by the Louisiana Supreme Court because of a conflict of interest in the DA’s office and the prosecution was taken over by the attorney general’s office, then headed by Buddy Caldwell.

As a result, Cisco, who just 13 years ago, was sentenced to 90 years following a plea bargain negotiated by Caldwell’s office, was granted parole earlier this month but only the alert actions of the Calcasieu Parish District Attorney’s office managed to thwart his early release.

All of which brings up another question. When Cisco was sentenced in March 2010, Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell, the son of Buddy Caldwell, assured the media and the families of the three victims of the brutal slaying at a Lake Charles convenience store that Cisco “will die in Angola.” Prosecutors said at the time that Cisco would not become eligible for release from prison until he was 104 years old.

So, how is it that he was eligible for parole after only 13 years? What happened to spending the rest of his life in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola?

Regardless, Landry flirted with malfeasance by not having a representative at Cisco’s parole hearing. Because of that neglect of duty, a convicted (actually an admitted killer, since he’d pled guilty) was only hours from walking out of prison a free man.

Only the actions of District Attorney Stephen Dwight prevented a major fiasco.

Following the parole board’s approval but before Cisco’s release, Dwight requested a review of all disciplinary records for Cisco – a routine request you’d think a second-year law student would know to make – and learned that Cisco had not told the parole board about an infraction involving contraband to which he had pled guilty.

Because the infraction occurred prior to the time of the parole hearing, it immediately negated his eligibility for parole and the board’s approval was rescinded.

“The Attorney General in 2010 is the one that actually pled him to the manslaughter,” Dwight said. “The DA’s office originally convicted him with first degree murder, and he was sentenced to [the] death penalty. When the Attorney General’s office got it when it came back on appeal, they pled it to manslaughter, three counts of manslaughter, looking at over 100 years, and that’s when he (Caldwell) made the assurance to Calcasieu Parish [that Cisco] would serve the rest of his life in jail, and that almost didn’t happen.”

With only Justice Jeffrey Victory dissenting, the State Supreme Court threw out the conviction because Lake Charles attorney Evelyn M. Oubre, who defended Cisco, also represented Calcasieu Parish sheriff’s deputy Donald “Lucky” DeLouche, director of the sheriff department’s Violent Crimes Task Force, and his wife in a family law matter, meaning there was a possibility that she represented both the defendant and the state’s primary prosecution witness (DeLouche) simultaneously.

Dwight now says that he doesn’t believe the conflict doesn’t exist anymore and because the crime originated in Calcasieu Parish, “we believe we are the prosecuting agency now.” He said his office wants the file back. “We don’t have it right now but we are requesting that that prosecution come back to our office.”

He added that his office is always present for every parole hearing. “Our office is always present for a parole hearing. We are there to oppose a parole hearing or we give our input to the parole board to let them know if we approve it or not approve it, and we are there in person when we do that, we will do that.” He said if his office gets the file back, he will continue to attend all hearings. “The process worked here because they did realize what happened and corrected the wrong.”

Attempts were made to reach Landry for a comment but apparently, he had gone to the library.

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I’m not too excited at the prospect of Joe Biden running for reelection. He is, after all, 80 years old (just a year older than I and I am acutely aware that, my lack of qualifications aside, I’m in no physical or mental shape to endure the rigors of a job so demanding).

Having said that, however, I find the criticism of Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Louis Gurvich to be one of the thinnest arguments I’ve seen yet by anyone purporting to be a leader. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear that his essay yesterday was written for The Onion but mistakenly ended up on The Hayride blog.

While I earnestly hope that someone else will step up to carry the Democratic banner (just as I hope the Republican candidate in 2024 won’t be named Trump or DeSantis), I fail to see how Gurvich could ever stretch credulity to the point of calling Biden the “most immoral and corrupt of all presidents” in light of Gurvich’s own party’s recent occupant of the Oval Office.

It’s not rhetoric or embellishment to declare that Trump was, hands down, the “most immoral and corrupt of all presidents.” To be unable or unwilling to see that should instantly disqualify Gurvich from serving as chairman of any political party.

But he didn’t stop there. He accused Biden of committing plagiarism in his repeated mantra “finish the job.” Gurvich claims that Biden lifted that phrase from “one of the most important speeches ever given by Winston Churchill, in the darkest days of 1942.”

Perhaps.

But let’s look at Trump’s oft-repeated catchphrase “America First.” Do you think that was original with Donnybrook of Orange?

Nope. Besides being the utterance of Charles Lindbergh, a Nazi sympathizer during the lead-up to WWII, it was more recently the slogan of one David Duke, leader of the Ku Klux Klan and, depending on the timeframe, mouthpiece for the American Nazi Party.

But even before that, in the 1920s, the words “America First” were splashed across banners carried in parades and rallies by the KKK.

Now ask yourself this question: Whom would you rather hear a politician lift a quote from–Winston Churchill or a sleazy outfit like the KKK?

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There’s one thing you can always count on with Jeff Landry. He knows how to detect which way the parade is going and to jump out in front and shout, “Follow me!”

Landry is just your typical political opportunist who hasn’t had an original thought since he was potty-trained.

He wasn’t the one who initiated Trump’s Stop the Steal mantra, but he certainly jumped into the fray when it became obvious that was where the MAGA crowd was headed.

And now that he’s picked up on the hysteria over book content for the kiddies and the censorship that’s sure to follow, he’s once again leading the charge from behind.

It wasn’t enough to establish an attorney general’s “protecting minors” hotline to take complaints about librarians and teachers. Now he wants to establish controls on library cards for kids to prevent those under the age of 18 from having access to sexually explicit materials in libraries.

Wow, Jeffy boy, that’s going to rule out a lot of classic literature. The Grapes of Wrath comes to mind almost immediately. So does To Kill a Mockingbird, and, of course, The Holy Bible.

If you’re really actually read it, you have to admit that the Bible is probably one of the most sexually explicit pieces of literature in existence. Where else are you going to read about two sisters raping their father? Or two different fathers, on different occasions, offering their virgin daughters to gangs of men for sex so long as they leave the male guests, who the men originally wanted, alone? There’s also the story of a man having sex with his daughter-in-law who he mistook for a prostitute. Or how about a man raping his sister or another man marrying his sister, or (gasp!) the suggestion in the Bible that David and Jonathan were gay lovers? So, it would appear, were Ruth and Naomi. And let’s not forget about a couple of references in the Good Book about men having sex with animals. It’s all in there as are other lurid stories, but common decency prevents me from being any more descriptive than I already have been. After all, I wouldn’t want Mr. Landry to flag this site for inappropriate content.

How do you propose to handle that knotty little problem, Mr. AG/Governor wannabe? The good Christian right-wing evangelicals who are backing your little political grandstanding ploy aren’t going to be too happy if you ban the Bible or insist that no one under the age of 18 be given access to it.

I think Lynette Majia, co-founder of Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship, nailed it when she described Landry’s call for restrictions on what minors can check out of public libraries as “just another political stunt.”

And taking this latest windmill tilting by Landry a bit further, I’ve yet to see or hear of him suggesting that access to cellphones or computers by minors be restricted in any way. Talk about inappropriate content! And if he thinks for one nano-second that Louisiana’s new law can block access to porn by teens and pre-teens, then I have a practically new 1974 AMC Gremlin to sell him.

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Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Tony Mancuso has called a press conference for 10 a.m. Wednesday (Feb. 8) and the expectation is that he will either announce he will not seek a sixth term – or announce his immediate resignation, according to two separate sources.

First elected in 2003, he was reelected to a fifth term with 88 percent of the votes cast in 2019.

If Mancuso does announce his resignation, the move could be considered a political ploy for him to name his successor.

If he resigns now, there would have to be a special election to fill the post until the next regular election next October. Speculation is that he might resign and simultaneously endorse Chief Deputy Stitch Guillory for the special election.

Guillory would be a strong favorite to win and thus go into the October election as an incumbent.

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Tenure for teachers and professors at colleges and universities does not protect faculty from wrongdoing, but ensures them due process, according to University of Louisiana System President Dr. Jim Henderson, who also said that tenure does not constitute a guarantee of employment for life as some believe.

Henderson, a member of the legislative task force charged with investigating tenure in Louisiana’s institutions of higher learning, says in a Baton Rouge Advocate story that tenure’s primary purpose is to shield academic freedom for faculty members in their research and classroom teaching.

States like Texas and Florida are already placing tight restrictions about what can and cannot be taught in public schools. At the same time, several Southern states have begun chipping away at tenure in higher education.

The creation of the task force during the 2022 regular session could be construed as the initial step in Louisiana’s legislative meddling into academia, an area few members of the House and Senate are qualified to address.

State Sen. Stewart Cathey (R-Monroe) authored the bill to create the task force of which he was subsequently named as chairperson. If his performance in heading up the task force were to be evaluated as are faculty members, he probably would not get tenure. Charged with presenting a report of its findings by March, the task force got off to a slow start, with only half the required slots being filled less than a week before its first meeting was scheduled.

The task force, however, has apparently now been disbanded after less than half-a-year of existence.

Late last month, he abruptly ANNOUNCED that he would not call a meeting of the panel, choosing instead to say that he would introduce a bill or bills in the upcoming regular legislative session. He did not specify what his legislation would propose.

And now, he apparently is attempting to intimidate faculty members at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond and Louisiana Tech University in Ruston for daring to suggest in a tweet that Cathey is attempting to “pull a DeSantis on colleges and universities,” in a reference to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s efforts to completely alter the teaching of history and even math in that state.

Cathey’s reply to Sherman and McKevitt wasn’t very subtle:

LouisianaVoice sent Cathey an email and followed that with a call to his Monroe office. The email asked if he was threatening the two faculty members and if he might be opposed to the First Amendment. We were told he was in Baton Rouge attending the special session to address the insurance crisis but that our email would be delivered to him.

That was last Thursday and he has yet to respond.

Louisiana postsecondary faculty are already among the lowest-paid in the South and the concern is if tenure is abolished, it would prompt a mass exodus of educators for other universities which could lead to certification problems for the universities.

Apparently, Cathey prefers to exhibit his lack of concern for that by marching in lockstep with the general philosophy of the Repugnantcan party.

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