Louisiana Voice

When last we visited 32^nd JDC Judge Randall Bethancourt, he’d just been:

• Accused, along with Terrebonne Parish President Gordon Dove, of paying voters up to $150 to vote for Bethancourt in his reelection bid;
• Presided over a bitter four-year dispute between grandparents and son over the grandparents’ visitation rights to their grandson in which legal fees reportedly bankrupted the child’s parents;
• Accused of falsifying court records in a separate case to show that a defendant was brought before a magistrate after his arrest—when, in fact, he was not.

His Honor Judge Randall Leon Bethancourt

All this occurred after an embarrassing LEGAL FAUX PAS by Bethancourt a decade ago when he signed a search warrant based on a 1968 law that was declared unconstitutional in 1981—a search warrant that ended up costing the parish about $250,000 in a settlement of the victim’s lawsuit—and that doesn’t include legal fees.

In this particular case, Bethancourt, whose campaign is basically propped up by contributions by attorneys who practice before him, awarded full custody of the child to the mother who had admitted on the witness stand that:

• She had made homicidal threats against her own mother;
• She was unable to distinguish reality from her delusions;
• She had made false accusations on court documents.

Moreover, she was arrested for domestic abuse when she assaulted the father and her daughter on the front lawn with at least four witnesses, including children who were present. But Bethancourt, in his judicial wisdom, refused to allow even the police report to be added into the record even though it would certainly seem relevant.

He then refused to allow the father’s witnesses to the incident to testify because the mother’s testimony lasted so long and Bethancourt indicated he was ready to “wrap things up.”

So, in effect, the father’s witnesses were cut by Bethancourt in the interest of saving the court time.

There’s more.

A court-appointed attorney, Heather McAlister, after two meetings with the child, in one of which the boy specifically requested that he be allowed more time with his father, she decided that the boy had Stockholm Syndrome (now referred to as Appeasement). She was so convinced after two brief interactions that she had her recommendation printed and ready in court before the father’s testimony.

As court-appointed attorney to represent the minor son, she had a duty to represent the child, yet she spent lunch chatting with the mother and her attorney. An observer noted that the trial proceeded “as though the mother had two attorneys of record.”

No misconduct was proved against the father. The boy’s teachers even testified that the father was the only involved parent.

Family courts throughout the state have been getting dragged across the coals—apparently with considerable justification. The common complaint is that one parent with financial resources can, with a crafty attorney doing the dirty work, easily wear the opposing parent down physically, emotionally and financially. It makes the promise of justice for all an empty joke.

The fact that family court proceedings are not open to the public and all records are sealed only exacerbates the problem. Nothing good ever occurs in secret.