Louisiana Voice

The 26^th Judicial District Court may have outsmarted justice and made a mockery of the state constitution requirements for selecting jury venires and in the process, managed to get its britches caught on its own pitchfork.

Funny thing is, the practice of alleged jury manipulation and document forgeries may well not be limited to the two-parish (Bossier and Webster) 26^th JDC.

Moreover, as many as 25 percent of the inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola currently serving sentences as a result of split-verdict convictions could conceivably see those convictions thrown out, depending on the results of a case now pending before the Louisiana Supreme Court.

One can only imagine the cost in re-trying thousands of inmates but that’s the price you pay when you manipulate jury selection and/or refuse to comply with the unanimous verdict requirements for felony convictions.

On April 20, 2020, two years ago almost to the day, the U.S. Supreme Court RULED that jury verdicts in trials for serious crimes (felonies) must be unanimous.

The ruling came on a landmark Louisiana case, Evangelisto Ramos v. Louisiana, in which a 10-2 jury verdict of guilty in a murder case was overturned, dealing a death blow, theoretically, at least, to Jim Crow laws as they applied to the selection of black jury members and their lack of influence on verdicts.

Louisiana and Oregon were the last two states that did not require unanimous jury verdicts in felony cases before the Ramos decision two years ago. Now, the only – and by far the biggest – question remaining is this: Does Ramos apply retroactively?

And how does Ramos impact Jim Crow?

I will take the latter question first. Following Reconstruction, southerners remained as determined as ever to deny African-Americans their rights. In fact, with the freedom of slaves, there was a severe labor shortage on southern plantations. But by continuing to honor split jury decisions in open violation of the 6^th Amendment, blacks began finding themselves convicted of crimes and sentenced to Angola where they were then rented out to the plantation owners for profit.

Allowing convictions with split jury verdicts, it became immensely easier to convict blacks of felonies and if there happened to be the inconvenience of a couple of black jury members, any propensity by them to acquit was quickly voted down by the 10-vote majority, meaning their presence was, for appearance’s sake, just for appearance’s sake.

As a point of clarification, unanimous jury verdicts have always been the requirement for capital murder cases.

And with some 6,000 inmates incarcerated at Angola, making Ramos retroactive could wreak havoc on the Louisiana judicial system for years to come. An already strained to the breaking point system would simply collapse under the added expense and time involved in holding new trials for as many as 1,500 prisoners.

To be sure, the problem is of Louisiana politicians’ own making. In 1898, Louisiana took the lead over other southern states by passing a law that recognized the split jury decision. Only then, the approved split was 9-3, where it remained until the state constitutional convention scaled it back to 10-2.

The ramifications of Ramos aside, there’s a case in the 26^th JDC that should have officials squirming uncomfortably – all because a retired military and commercial pilot spent seven years of his life documenting what he maintains are manipulated venires, violations of venire requirements and outright forgeries and altered documents.

Gary Holder is not your garden variety malcontent. He is a father whose world was turned upside-down on the night of Nov. 18, 2011.

“My son Chris was misdiagnosed at age 15 and for the next five and one-half years, the doctors had him on 34 major psychotropic drugs, as many as eight or nine drugs at the same time. Every one of these drugs has two “black box” warnings:

• Do not give to children under the age of 18 years or young adults (age 26), and
• Do not combine.

“That night, he went into what was diagnosed as a prescribed drug-induced schizophrenic rage and brutally killed his mother, my wife,” Holder said. “The subsequent trial was a political trial because District Attorney Skyler Marvin was up for reelection and also [becase] Chris’ mother was a prominent physician.”

Holder said after the trial, an individual called him to say he had some information concerning the jury selection in Chris Holder’s trial. “He said he had a friend that worked in the (Bossier) clerk of court’s office (who) told him that the jury had been manipulated and that they had been doing this for many years.”

He said he spent the next seven years investigating the jury selection procedures of the 26^th JDC and thoroughly reviewed numerous General Venires. “I discovered that in each venire, every jury selection law in the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedures, federal laws, the rules and regulations of the Louisiana Supreme Court, the US Constitution and the Louisiana Constitution had been violated.

“I also discovered numerous documents had been altered and/or forged. I hired one of the nation’s most qualified forensic document and handwriting analysists to examine the paperwork.” (More on that in a subsequent installment later this week.)

In February, the Louisiana Supreme Court agreed to take up the 25-year-old murder conviction of REGINALD REDDICK to determine if Ramos will indeed be applied retroactively.

Because of the discreprancies Holder insists he has uncovered in the 26th JDC, the cases of his son, Ramos, and Reddick are inextricably interwoven.

“The hearing of Reddick is long overdue and needs to be heard and argued in the open,” the senior Holder said. “It is very clear that Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is against the idea of retroactivity for these 1500 or more inmates,” he said. “He believes that he has the number of justices on the Louisiana Supreme Court to block this ban. He also believes that the justices on the Louisiana Supreme Court can hide behind the black robes of the United States Supreme Court justices and their ruling in the Ramos case on retroactivity. But Landry cannot hide behind the rampant cesspool of corruption and cheating. Nor can he hide from the stench of the corruption and the cheating in the jury selection process.”

Indeed, the state attorney general – nor any other attorney, prosecutor or otherwise – should ever “have” a judge or judges to achieve any purpose. A judge, by definition, should be impartial, weigh all the evidence, and render a just and fair decision. To say Landry “has” the judges he needs is to taint the Louisiana Supreme Court from the outset.

TOMORROW: How jury venires are manipulated

LouisianaVoice‘s April fundraiser is now in the stretch run as we move into the final week. You’ll gave relief from my shameless panhandling until October.

I hate having to come to you this way, but there are certain expenses involved in following the actions of our political leaders – actions and events that others in the media choose to ignore or brush over lightly with touch-and-go coverage. It’s important that some issues not be allowed to die a quiet death and disappear from the radar.

Louisiana State Police come to mind immediately. Had the story of that illegal pension bill for the former LSP superintendent not been pursued, along with all the other stories that emerged from that one story, the Ronald Greene matter might forever have been kept under wraps.

Had a single story been devoted to the Louisiana State Dental Board, it may have gone on running roughshod over dentists who board members found in disfavor.

Had LouisianaVoice and James Gill not stayed with the story of Ashton O’Dwyer, the back story of the plot to sue the US Army Corps of Engineers might never have come to light.

That’s what we do and there are costs involved in keeping this ship afloat. Please contribute what you can by clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post to give by credit card or send a check to: Capital News Service, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727. Those contributing $100 or more will received a signed copy of my novel It’s All TheIRS, the story of a man who takes on the IRS with surprising results.

As always, thanks so much for your 11 years of support.

I’m not quite sure what Mike Pompeo meant or why he said, “Parents should get to decide what their children are taught, not the government or teachers unions.”

Those few words tell me a lot about the former guy’s director of the CIA and secretary of state, none of which addresses the issue of public education. Everything about that declaration screams political rhetoric calculated as a dog whistle to the former guy’s largely uneducated political base.

It sounded very much like Pompeo is positioning himself, like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, for a run at some major office, most probably that of president should former guy opt out after bleeding his supporters of every dime he can extract from them for his “defense.”

Regardless if Pompeo’s declaration came from the heart or from political expediency, it’s the same type of political grandstanding emanating from the political right – and from persons wholly unqualified, like myself, to judge what should or should not be taught in the nation’s classrooms.

I’m in no position to determine what should be taught in a science classroom. I’m not a scientist. Looking back, I would prefer having had an introductory course to real physics. I took a course affectionately called baby physics in college.

I thought it was a real course when I signed up but it turned out the entire course was designed for jocks who needed desperately to make a good grade to remain eligible. One of the questions on my final exam was a true-false question: Pluto is a dog-shaped planet. No joke.

I likewise never took trig or calculous and didn’t do too well in algebra. I believe those facts disqualify me to dictate what my grandkids are taught in school. Nor would I be at the top of the list to tell the shop instructor how to teach the proper use of a jigsaw or power drill.

Nor would I ever trust some idiot whose last words were, “Hey, hold my beer and watch this,” or his brain-dead cousin whose last utterance was, “Hell, I can do that. Hold my beer.”

Virtually everyone I know may possess superior knowledge in a single field at most. To place in that person’s hands the responsibility of selecting the curriculum for a wide range of disciplines, from English literature and grammar to quantum and quantitative physics is madness.

Future history books (in Florida, at least) will contain no mention of the Jan. 6, 2021 US Capitol insurrection but will probably repeat the Big Lie that the election was stolen by a bunch of pedophile Democrats. Stories of the Tuskegee Airmen will disappear from history.

Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympic Games, Jackie Robinson? Fuggedaboutit. Hank Aaron never broke Ruth’s home run record.

Louisiana has Clay Higgins, John Kennedy, Steve Scalise, Mike Johnson, and Jeff Landry as members in good standing in the nutcase fraternity.

But Florida counters with DeSantis, Mark Rubio, Matt Gaetz, and Rick Scott and Texas gives us Abbott, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, and Ken Paxton.

It’s enough to make us miss Bobby Jindal.

DeSantis has managed the nearly impossible task of making Disney World appear sympathetic. Instead of addressing the legitimate question of Disney’s treatment of young employees, particularly on its cruise ships where crews comprised mostly of non-citizens are worked brutally long hours for little pay, he chose to attack the theme park for it s policy of inclusion.

DeSantis has purged some 50 or so math texts for supposed CRT content. What can possibly be CRT-related in teaching math? Perhaps it’s the “equal” sign that he finds offensive. As for history, it’s always been said that the winners write the history books but to expunge all references to slavery which was the central issue in a war that tore this country apart, borders on outright censorship. Apparently, the CRT that DeSantis so opposes stands for Comprehensive Rational Thought.

I guess it goes without saying that Florida will ban the reading of Shakespeare’s Othello because it’s a story about a white chick who falls in love with a black dude. In case you’ve never been exposed to that play, the local rednecks appeal to the sage duke to intervene and nip the romance in the bud. Instead, the wise old duke tells them they must exercise restraint, tolerance, and understanding. Well, right away, we know that’s not our Duke.

Another Easter has come and gone and with it, the annual cool snap that always accompanies that holiday (as Casey Stengel would say, you can look it up – every Easter brings a brief cool spell).

Easter this year also coincides with that favorite time of year – federal income tax deadline.

The heavy-handiness of the IRS is so bad that it inspired me to write a novel about a poor schmuck who is unfairly targeted by the agency for hundreds of thousands of dollars he doesn’t owe and decides to fight back. With some newspaper friends and the Internet, he brings Congress to a grinding haltand forces the federal government to negotiate on his terms.

The book is called It’s All TheIRS and you can get a signed copy by contributing $100 or more to LouisianaVoice’s semi-annual fund drive, yet another April feature you don’t want to miss. (I would say a free signed copy if I were some shameless televangelist, but if you’re contributing $100, it wouldn’t be free, would it?)

We strive to bring you stories no one else is covering or to give you more background information than you get elsewhere. To do that takes time and money. Gasoline for travel, fees for copies ($20 per page is what the Louisiana Secretary of State charges even though state law recommends a charge of 25 cents (1/80th the Secretary of State rate). And then, or course, there are the legal fees for pursuing public records from the more reluctant public agencies.

If you can’t give $100, any amount is deeply appreciated. You can give by credit card by clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post or you can mail a check to:

Capital News Service, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727.

As always, I wish to express my deep gratitude to those who have supported LouisianaVoice for nearly 12 years now.

It’s 271 pages of mystery and intrigue as only a seasoned law enforcement officer could write it.

John Rigol, Jr. is a retired Louisiana State Trooper who is more than a little disgusted and embarrassed over events taking place today in the agency he once served with pride and honor.

Junior, a self-described 80-year-old reprobate, has published his first (hopefully not his last) novel, Hyenas in a Domed Savanna.

How he arrived at the title remains unclear but I can say unequivocally that the hyenas are the politicos. They are commonly viewed as frightening and worthy of contempt. A savanna is a grassland ecosystem which, in this case, would be an analogy to the football playing field. Without giving too much of the plot away, I can tell you it’s a fictional account of human trafficking, namely children, through the New Orleans Superdome.

Rigol, who now makes his home in Ft. Myers with his wife (his third or seventh or maybe ninth run at wedded bliss – no one knows for certain).

Back in 1976, when I was a mere babe, Gov. Edwin Edwards, through Louisiana State Police Superintendent Donald Thibodeaux, appointed Rigol as Chief of Staff Security at the dome which was still very much a controversial issue, especially in north Louisiana where the Dallas Cowboys reigned supreme and no one cared about the impotent Saints.

But Rigol’s appointment was the result of more pressing matters. The dome construction had been completed but there were major problems with personal assaults, muggings, and pickpockets.

Catapulted into ground zero of Louisiana and New Orleans politics, a toxic mix if there ever was one, “Johnny,” a lieutenant with LSP, soon found himself entangled in an intricate weave of intrigue completely alien to him.

Today, when he is not writing (which is rarely), he reads and travels – two of his other three passions (drinking is the other). He also has written an as-yet unpublished exegesis about God, religion, and the Bible.

In the meantime, there is Hyenas in a Domed Savanna.

You can order your copy from Johnny by sending him a check for $20 to:

John Rigol, Jr.

3345 North Key Drive, #46

North Fort Myers, FL 33903