Louisiana Voice

My buddy Billy Wayne Shakespeare wrote in his classic play Hamlet Bob that there was “something rotten in Denmark.”

The same can pretty much be said of the awarding of an $11 million, three-year CONTRACT  to a relatively new firm called Primary Class, Inc., dba Odyssey, to administer the state’s fledgling “education savings account” program.

The ink wasn’t dry on a similar $50 million no-bid contract with the state of Idaho before auditors were called in to investigate reports of $180,000 in IMPROPER OR DUBIOUS PURCHASES.

Primary Class also was said to have IMPROPERLY HELD Idaho taxpayer funds in an interest-bearing account and retaining those interest earnings.

Primary Class (or Odyssey) also bid unsuccessfully on a similar contract for the State of Arkansas and then cried foul when another vendor, Student First, won the bid over Odyssey and one other company, ClassWallet. Arkansas State Procurement Director Jessica Patterson, in a five-page LETTER on May 3, 2024, denied Odyssey’s protest.

All this is to suggest that Louisiana might have been more prudent to have vetted Odyssey a little more closely before throwing $11 million at the company.

But then, the State of Louisiana, aka the Louisiana Legislature, has historically managed to fritter away revenue recklessly while staking the state’s financial fortunes on the volatile oil and gas industry. Remember the bust of the 1980s?

And while Louisiana consistently lags behind other Southern states in teacher pay, legislators always manage to find the money for pet projects.

Like, for example, the approval of that ridiculous $14,000 stipend for each and every judge in the state while only grudgingly approving a paltry $2,000 stipend for teachers even as it cut early childhood programs by $9 million, or 37.5 percent.

Without being too specific, I’ve observed some judges in this state that should be paid minimum wage – and that’s only because of legal restrictions on lower salaries. Try, for instance, to even find a judge on a Friday afternoon. Not gonna happen.

I know, I know, they’re going to try and tell us how dedicated they are, how much reading they have to do, ya-da, ya-da. They’re going to campaign for office by telling us how tough they are on crime, how they support the Second Amendment, etc. But first of all, being tough on crime is for police and prosecutors. The judge’s job is supposed to be apolitical. They are there only to weigh the evidence in a case, not to take a position. And Second Amendment? What’s that got to with being a judge anyway?

But to give these guys a $14,000 bonus while only approving $2,000 for teachers – and doing that at the last minute as if throwing a dog a bone – is a damned insult. Do these legislators (and our guvner) have any idea how much extra duty teachers perform? They grade papers at night, they pull bus line and parent line duty, recess duty, lunchroom duty, break up fights, wipe snotty noses and listen to guff from derelict parents who have no idea what homework their kids bring home and then bitch when the grades come out. On top of all this, they have to put up with local school board members, many of whom never set foot in a classroom after graduation. And do you have any idea how many times teachers must reach into their personal finances to purchase supplies for their classrooms? No, of course you don’t.

And they get a $2,000 stipend and then only because lawmakers are able to cut $9 million from early childhood programs. The devil giveth and the devil taketh away.

But not from the judges. Supreme Court Justice James Genovese got his $14k as he was on his way out the door to assume duties as president of NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY in Natchitoches (at a salary of $350,000 – fully $61,000 more than outgoing President Marcus Jones). “I have served 29 years as a judge,” he sniffed. “I’ve earned it.”

No, Judge, you were paid a salary that you may or may not have earned. Teachers, on the other hand, earn their pay – and much more – every single day of the year. And that $61,000 increase salary over that of your predecessor is more than some teachers make for an entire year, so shut your pie hole about “earning” that $14,000 bonus unless you spend that $14,000 on supplies for your courtroom, and I seriously doubt that.

And don’t give me any crap about teachers getting a three-month vacation each year. They’re lucky if they can catch their breaths in the summer months, what with the conferences, planning for the next school year, paperwork and in some cases, continuing their own educations. They can only hope for a stress-free weekend.

Judge Genovese, your arrogance is exceeded only by your lack of qualifications to lead a state university.

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Well, hee’s a headline you don’t see every day:

INDIANA SUPREME COURT ESTABLISHES ATTORNEY SHORTAGE COMMISSION.

That unlikely headline in the Indiana Capital Chronicle even provided the inspiration for cartoonist Tim Campbell of the Hamilton County Reporter of Noblesville, Indiana that, on the one hand, acknowledge that there was a shortage of practicing attorneys in Indiana while there is no dearth of cheesy lawyer ads in Herb Shriner’s home state (okay, I gave my age away with that reference to the late comedian).

Most of us at one time or another have heard the line from Act IV, Scene II Billy Wayne Shakespeare’s Henry Vi, Part II in which Dick the Butcher says, “The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

Comics (and wannabe comics) have used the line to disparage the profession in general but in reality, the line has been taken out of context. Ol’ Dick, you see, is really a bad guy, the aide-de-camp, as it were, to anarchist Jack Cade who wants to overthrow King Henry and knows his job will be so much easier if they kill anyone who can read and burn all the books they come across. That way, they surmise, they’ll more easily take over an ignorant population if no one understands their rights (sound vaguely familiar?)

But back to Tim Campbell’s cartoon:

Apparently, Campbell is of the belief that Indiana somehow has the market cornered on obnoxious lawyer ads.

I offer as a refutation of that dubious inference as Exhibit A, the bevy of advertisements by some of Louisiana’s barristers. “Now thar,” to borrow a phrase from another late comedian, Andy Griffith, “is th’ real thang.”

I watch the noon newscast on a local television station each day and I’ve decided that one of two possibilities is a certainty: either Louisiana is plagued with more automobile accidents that one could reasonably imagine or there are some lawyers on the verge of starvation. If I had their combined advergising budget, I wouldn’t need to win the Powerball.

I also am of the firm belief that the only reason the noon newscast even exists in the first place is to keep all the lawyer ads from bumping together. And even that doesn’t work. It’s not at all unusual, at least in the Baton Rouge market, to have ads for three separate lawyers to run consecutively with no break between. It’s enough to inflict a tort injury from the dizziness of it all.

And some of those ads! Hell, they’re practically begging us to go out and get slammed by an 18-wheeler or some other monstrous vehicle (or at least to become a part of some class-action lawsuit where the lawyers get millions and the actual plaintiffs a coupon). One local attorney even claims to have a 24-hour “accident investigation team” at our beck and call – just in case.

One has a cute miniature poodle named Penny and the lawyer jumps from a tall building onto the top of an 18-wheeler trailer while making his pitch for clients, telling us to “get it done.” Another went him one better with a talking dog, a yellow lab who may actually be more intelligent – and unquestionably more attractive – than the lawyer whose ad he appears in.

Still another, in something of a Freudian slip, suggested that their law firm could get you “everything coming to you – and more.”

But the worst, the cheesiest, the most offensive (at least to my particular taste which admittedly, is conditioned to find all television advertising repulsive – including all those ads for medications for which all sorts of ailments and afflictions have been invented, but that’s another story in itself) is the one that begins with a voice that sounds like one of those movie trailers (deep, dramatic and god-like) that proclaims, “This is your city” as the camera pans some apparently poor lost soul wandering around on the rooftop of what passes as a Baton Rouge version of a skyscraper. “These are your streets,” the invisible voice continues before suggesting that if you’re injured in an auto accident, “This is your lawyer.” Gawd, it’s bad.

The least offensive is an attorney who gets his message across in a maximum of 15 seconds. In one of his spots, he asks, “Why do billion-dollar insurance companies consistently delay and deny your claim? Because that’s how they become billion-dollar companies.” The beauty of that ad is that he is 100 percent correct. There’s a lot to be said for truth in advertising.

There’s also much to be said for humor in commercials. One lawyer used to consistently leave me chuckling at his ads (which is unusual, considering my overall disdain for commercials). In one, he actually chased an ambulance down the street. Now, that’s funny, I don’t care who you are. He even took a brief fling at performing as an open mic stand-up comic and I found him to be quite funny. Unfortunately, the disciplinary bar didn’t think some of his practices were so funny, so he was forced to take a temporary hiatus from practicing. He’s back now but his clever ads are not.

Many of the lawyer ads love to tell us how much they’ve won for their clients. But the one thing that they never divulge is how much their settlements and judgments cost their clients in terms of attorney fees, expert fees, costs of copying documents, court costs, deposition costs and process serving fees. Oh, there was an attempt a few years back to pass legislation requiring lawyers, when boasting of awards won, to reveal what the cost to their clients was, but that was successfully beaten back by attorneys who had no intention of becoming that transparent in their messaging.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to be buried under a barrage of local noon news commercials pleading with us to go out there and get maimed by a big truck and to call (fill in the _____) attorney for justice.

Just don’t fall off that rooftop while looking down at the streets of your city.

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Melissa Matey began her employment with Louisiana State Police (LSP) as a State Trooper on Marcy 27, 2007 and rose in rank until her retirement at the rank of lieutenant on June 27, 2024.

The day after her retirement, on June 28 of this year, she rejoined LSP as a WAE Trooper at an hourly rate of $35 – working from Greece, it seems.

WAE, an acronym for “When Actually Employed,” is a system under Civil Service by which a retired state civil service employee may be hired at an hourly salary for a temporary time and for a limited number of hours, usually a predetermined time, to fill a position in order to address filling a position to address an emergency or to work overload situations.

In reality, WAE is often abused by state agencies as a way to reward favored employees upon their retirements by supplementing their retirement incomes.

Working remotely has become the thing since the Covid pandemic, but we’re not at all sure what Matey could be doing on behalf of Louisiana State Police in Greece, but there she is, waving goodbye to New Orleans from her airplane seat on June 2, a little more than three weeks before her official retirement and re-hire as a hard-working WAE employee, bidding adieu with “see you next year:”

 …And on an earlier trip, in April, posting a picture of a beautiful sunset in Athens, where reports indicated her husband is completing his own career with the Department of Homeland Security.

 While it may be difficult for some to wrap their brains around how she will be managing to perform any official functions for Louisiana State Police while living in Greece, there are reports that there are other WAE employees working remotely for LSP – one in Mississippi and another in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

WAE employees are supposed to be approved by the Louisiana State Police Commission, but the commission canceled its June, July and August meetings and will not convene again until September but records obtained by LouisianaVoice indicate that Matey is already officially added to the LSP payroll.

We made a public records request of LSP for Matey’s employment information, including her appointment as a WAE employee, her salary progression, her time sheets and supervisor sign-offs of her time sheets but apparently LSP has a problem running down those records.

Despite the state Public Records Law LA. R.S. 44.1 (et seq.), which says the custodian of records “shall” produce requested records immediately or notify the requestor as to when they will be available “within three working days,” LSP informs LouisianaVoice that it could take them up to 45 days to secure and produce the records.

Fortunately for us, we were able to obtain her employment record from the date of her initial hire to her retirement and appointment as a WAE employee, along with her salary progression from other sources. We still don’t have her time sheets, but we are (ahem) almost certain LSP will be forwarding those any time now.

I’m being facetious, of course. LSP has no intention of complying with the Public Records Law, especially since what’s-his-name, the governor, has watered down the penalty phase of the law to make it meaningless. LSP has been ever-so-secretive since that brutal killing of Ronald Greene for which there has been scant prosecution and about which there has been even scantier news of late – except that brief story saying that Kory York, who is still awaiting his trial on charges of negligent homicide and malfeasance in office for Greene’s death, has been allowed to RETIRE  from LSP – with full benefits.

My bet right now is that there will never be an actual trial, that the charges will eventually be dropped or plea bargained to some minor punishment.

And we will still be waiting for those employment records for Matey that we requested.

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The Rev. Franklin Graham is upset that the Democratic Party is running an ad that attempts “to promote candidate [Kamala] Harris.” He says the Dems are “trying to mislead people. Maybe they don’t know that my father appreciated the conservative values and polices of [Donald Trump] in 2016, and if he were alive today, my father’s views and opinions would not have changed.”

Here is the story from Morning Joe and the rev’s post expressing his indignation at the “Evangelicals for Harris” political ad (below)

The liberals are using anything and everything they can to promote candidate Harris. They even developed a political ad trying to use my father

@BillyGraham

’s image. They are trying to mislead people. Maybe they don’t know that my father appreciated the conservative values and policies of President

@realDonaldTrump

in 2016, and if he were alive today, my father’s views and opinions would not have changed.

But if we take a deeper dive into Franklin Graham’s own utterances and compare the true meaning of Christianity as compared to Trump and the Repugnantcan Party, we can see the blatant hypocrisy in how the evangelicals can rationalize just about anything to fit their own agenda. Here’s a couple of actual quotes by Franklin Graham:

Here’s another contrasting picture between real Christianity and the philosophy espoused by Trump and the Repugnantcans:

…And here’s a relevant Bible verse to underscore the point:

So, for the evangelicals who seem to think Donald Trump embodies the values that Christians hold dear, here’s a little advice:

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Well, you gotta wonder what this guvner is up to.

But then, maybe not.

After all, it’s never been any secret that Jeff Landry prefers closed doors to all his back room deals.

What’s that slogan that can be found beneath the masthead of The Washington Post?

Oh, yeah, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

And this blog carries its own masthead slogan: “It is understandable when a child is afraid of the dark, but unforgivable when a man fears the light.”

But all that seems to matter little to our little tinhorn would-be dictator.

• It wasn’t enough that he joined nine other Republican state attorneys general in a baseless VOTER-FRAUD LAWSUIT while he was Louisiana’s attorney general.
• It wasn’t enough that he DECLINED to join other attorneys general in condemning the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, well, because his fingers were all over robocalls that went out by GOP AGS to INCITE that very event.
• It wasn’t enough that Landry pushed for passage of a law that requires RESIDENCY STATUS of anyone seeking public record from the state – because an INDIANAPOLIS RESIDENT made a couple of requests that were potentially embarrassing to Landry, again while he was attorney general.
• It wasn’t enough that while serving as the state’s supposed top legal officer, he actually SUED A REPORTER for the Baton Rouge Advocate when the reporter had the temerity to make a perfectly legal public records request.
• And it wasn’t enough that Landry managed to push through legislation that all but removes any ENFORCEMENT POWERS to the Louisiana Public Records Act (LA. R.S. LA. R.S. 44.1 (et seq.)) by eliminating monetary penalties for non-compliance, or that he VETOED a bill that sought to expand access to public employee records.
• But also like Bobby Jindal before him, he found it in his heart to take on the already all-but-powerless State Ethics Board by PACKING THE BOARD with four additional (hand-picked) members, increasing the board’s size from 11 to 15. Now, that wouldn’t be because the board had the unmitigated gall to cite him for accepting private airplane flights from a contributor, Greg Mosing, would it? Nah, of course not. He would stoop to such cheap political maneuvers the way Jindal, who had experienced similar difficulties with the board, did.
• Hell, it ain’t like the State Ethics Board is a toothless tiger already. Just take a look at the outstanding fines that CANDIDATES seem to be in no hurry to pay, or similar uncollected fines levies against POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEES that remain outstanding.
• Nor was it enough that Landry and his hand-picked successor, sock puppet Liz Murrill are willing to spend an ungodly (pardon the bad pun) amount to defend an indefensible law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in every. single. classroom. in every. single. public. school. in. Louisiana. The First Amendment clearly says that there shall be no law “respecting an establishment of religion…” but Landry and Murrill apparently have no problem dictating what we can and cannot have access to in our public libraries in some warped idea of protecting the fragile sensitivities of Louisiana citizens.

But here’s the kicker about protecting our citizens: that apparent concern on the part of Landry and Murrill apparently does not extend to the guarantee of justice for the wrongfully convicted.

I have completed a manuscript for a new book entitled 101 Wrongful Convictions in Louisiana, which will be published later this year. The book takes a detailed look at 101 Louisiana citizens who were shipped off to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola – some given life sentences, others actually sent to death row – for crimes they never committed. Some of these 101 human beings rotted away behind bars literally for decades before being exonerated.

Many of those were from New Orleans where former District Attorney Harry Connick’s office made it a regular practice to exclude exculpatory evidence that, had it been revealed at trial, would have resulted in not guilty verdicts.

National statistics place one in 20 (5%) criminal cases result in wrongful convictions. With some 32,000 inmates in Louisiana’s nine prisons, that works out to about 1,600 persons who may be currently sitting behind bars because of wrongful convictions.

That estimate is, of course, subjective and unscientific, a guess at best. But if there is a single person unjustly convicted of a crime for which he or she is not guilty, that is one too damned many.

All that matter little to Landry who earlier this year signed into law post-conviction relief changes that he pompously proclaimed would “make our streets and communities safer for all.”

This is no attempt to defend those who are genuinely guilty of committing crimes against society but it is an indictment of the practice of sending away innocent people to be forgotten (out of sight, out of mind) by that same society – people who have families who love and miss them.

But thanks to Landry, Murrill and a “Christian” Republican legislature that would have kept John the Baptist imprisoned despite his innocence, or who would’ve condemned Jesus Christ for being “woke,” sympathetic district attorneys like Orleans Parish’s Jason Williams no longer have the option of correcting injustices. Also featured in the overhaul of the criminal justice system was an expanded death penalty provision and an end to good-time parole.

Since Williams took office in 2021, he established a civil rights division in the district attorney’s office which helped vacate about 150 convictions and to reduce sentences in another 180 but Act 10 of this year’s legislative session put the kibosh on all that. DAs and judges no longer have the discretion to waive legal time limits to reach such agreements years after a conviction. It also gives Murrill the power to challenge any such agreements.

Act 10 prompted Andrew Hundley, executive director of the Louisiana Parole Project to observe, “There’s an uglier history in New Orleans. We should prioritize getting it right, even decades later, over simply maintaining convictions.”

But “getting it right” was never on the radar of Landry/Murrill. It’s all about power through the perception of “law and order.” To hell with justice.

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