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Racist texts, a suspended lawyer running for judge, ethics violations, sexual misconduct? Just state’s judicial system

February 27, 2020 by tomaswell

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.]

 

Posted in Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Judges, Lawsuits, Transparency | 10 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

February 27, 2020 by tomaswell

“Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist  and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart —you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians  are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”

—Donald Trump, apparently off his meds, in a July 2016 campaign speech in South Carolina.

Posted in Notable Quotables | 12 Comments »

Insurance Commissioner who receives campaign funds from insurance industry fails to fight for Louisiana policyholders

February 26, 2020 by tomaswell

First, it was the issue of homeowner insurance deductibles. Time was, a homeowner could opt for deductibles of $500, $1,000, or just about any other amount s/he chose and that deductible would apply across the board for damages.

But then the insurance companies, already flush with cash, decided it would be better for their shareholders if the deductible for “named storms” would be a tad higher—like 10 percent of the home’s appraised value. Hence, a home appraised at $150,000 (about the median appraisal) would be smacked with a $15,000 deductible for damage from a “named storm.”

And, bear in mind, that is wind damage only. Flood damage is an entirely different issue and those premiums are projected to soar out of sight and out of affordability for many homeowners.

And where was our Department of Insurance when Allstate, State Farm, Progressive, et al, came up with this beautiful scheme?

Strangely silent.

And where was our Department of Insurance when Allstate and State Farm battled with stressed-out homeowners over whether damage was from rising or falling water, forcing many homeowners to either settle in for years-long battles or to settle for pennies on the dollar?

Strangely silent.

And in 2018, when the Louisiana Legislature approved a resolution directing the Department of Insurance to “establish a task force to conduct a comprehensive study of the commercial bail bond industry as a whole and make recommendations for proposed legislation and policy changes to more effectively serve the residents of Louisiana,” what was the result?

A public records request to the Department of Insurance earlier this month produced this response from John Tobler, deputy commissioner of Public Affairs:

“Two meetings were held by our staff, taskforce members, members of the public and other bail bond industry stakeholders on September 27, 2018 and November 15, 2018. Additionally, no recommendations were made by the group for forwarding to the Legislature.”

So, in response to a unanimous resolution from both the House and Senate, the Department of Insurance was, for all practical purposes, strangely silent.

So now, Baton Rouge Advocate Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Ballard informs us that Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon is “okay” with the fact that insurers may pop widows with higher rates for automobile insurance for no other reason than the fact they are now single.

“The truth is that single women pay higher premiums than married women because of actuarial data that’s used in every of the 50 states,” Ballard quotes Donelon as saying. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a teenager, a single woman or if you’re a widow or if you’re a divorcee.”

Then he added, “I don’t know if that is true on the male side.”

Where is an insurance commissioner who will fight for his constituency?

To read the full text of Ballard’s story, click HERE.

I have tried—without success—to understand how Mrs. Smith is somehow a greater risk on our streets and highways now that her husband is no longer with us. She is the same person she was a week before his death. Mrs. Jones, who just got a divorce, might be an angry driver, depending on the reasons for the marriage failure, but I just don’t buy the theory that she’s a greater menace as a driver now than she was last year. Lest I be accused of gender bias, My position for widowers and divorced males is the same.

At least three bills have been pre-filed for the upcoming legislative session that would address the problem of rate discrimination against widows and divorcees. It remains to be seen if any of those bills will make their way to the governor’s desk.

Donelon’s acquiescence to the dictates of the insurance industry is not difficult to understand. While he’s elected by voters to represent the interests of the citizens of Louisiana, his political campaigns have been financed in large part by contributions from INSURANCE INDUSTRY INTERESTS.

And therein lies the problem.

I’ve said it before and I would reiterate that no public regulator should be allowed to accept contributions from the industry he or she regulates.

The attorney general accepts the bulk of his contributions from attorneys. That applies not only to Jeff Landry, the current AG, but to a long string of predecessors, as well.

Then there are judges—from local municipal judges all the way up to the Louisiana Supreme Court—who receive the majority of their campaign contributions from—you guessed it—lawyers, lawyers of all stripes: corporate, tax, trial, defense and family counselors. The only exceptions are federal judges, who are appointed.

What’s the solution? Normally, one might suggest making judges, the attorney general and insurance commissioner appointive positions. But one must remember, we’re in Louisiana and that seems to necessarily mean that appointees will be campaign contributors as well. Their donations will instead be directed further up the food chain, i.e. the governor.

And governors traditionally pay scant attention to qualifications when doling out appointments to boards and commissions and even some agency and departmental heads.

So, why would attorneys general, judges, and insurance commissioners be any different?

Meanwhile, the citizens of Louisiana continue to be under-represented by the Louisiana Department of Insurance.

 

Posted in Politics | 8 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

February 26, 2020 by tomaswell

“I think probably there, I would imagine that there’s probably a gun in the school to protect from potential grizzlies.”

—Donald Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, on why teachers should be armed, January 2017.

Posted in Politics | 6 Comments »

Tracking your taxpayer dollars: Southern takes writs after losing at trial and on its appeal of public meetings lawsuit

February 25, 2020 by tomaswell

There are so many ways a public agency can waste your taxpayer dollars. Some are out there for everyone to see like when contracts are awarded to a favored vendor even though that vendor didn’t have the low bid.

Or when a contractor is paid $175 per 100-square-foot tarps on rooftops in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina only to have the contractor (Shaw Group) subcontract the work to A-1 Construction for $75 a square and to have A-1 hire a second subcontractor, Westcon Construction at $30 per square, who finally pays workers $2 per square.

Other times, the waste is concealed from view and without someone doing a little digging, no one ever knows how thousands or dollars are frittered away by bureaucrats who nothing better to do than to quietly spread the spoils around among the politically-connected.

So it was in March of last year that Southern University’s Grievance Committee held hearings on the appeals of four professors who had been terminated. When the four professors indicated that they wanted the hearing to be in open meeting as opposed to executive session, their request was rejected out of hand.

The state’s open meetings law [R.S. 42:14 (A), (B), and (C)] allows for all personnel matters to be discussed [without any official vote being taken] in executive session unless the employee(s) being discussed requests that discussion be held in open session. Such request by the employee(s) would supersede any move for executive session.

But the Grievance Committee’s chairperson announced—without benefit of a public vote by the committee [also a violation of the open meetings statute] that a private vote had been conducted prior to the convening of the committee meeting at which it was decided to hold the executive session to discuss the professors’ grievance.

I was there to cover the hearing and the four professors and I promptly filed suit against Southern for violation of the open meetings law. The trial was held in 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge.

Southern presented the unique argument that the school’s grievance committee was not a public body—even though every member was an employee of Southern and the committee was acting on behalf of Southern’s administration. Unique indeed.

Even more bizarre, Southern attorney Winston DeCuir, Jr., in his cross-examination of yours truly, tried to question my right to be a party to the suit by asking how many other events I’d covered for LouisianaVoice at Southern. The answer was none—as if that had any legal bearing on the matter at hand. He then asked why I picked that hearing to cover and I replied truthfully that I had been alerted that the hearing might produce an interesting story for LouisianaVoice.

The presiding judge had little problem in ruling for the four professors and yours truly, awarding a total of $5,000 ($1,000 per plaintiff), plus attorney fees and court costs. So, counting the award, court costs and attorney fees, we’re already looking at something approaching $8,000-$10,000 all because DeCuir did not provide proper legal counsel to the committee when it decided to break the law. [He was there and should have advised the committee that it was treading on thin legal ice.]

But Southern wasn’t finished. Rather than cut its losses and pony up the money, DeCuir appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeal. Nothing like throwing good money after bad.

In January, the FIRST CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEAL handed down its decision. The lower court’s decision was upheld without a dissenting opinion. Unanimous, in other words.

Moreover, the First Circuit assessed additional attorney fees of $1,400 and additional court costs of $1,804. And that’s not counting what DeCuir will bill the university for his solid legal advice.

So, Southern learned its lesson, right?

Not quite.

At DeCuir’s advice, the university has now taken writs to the Louisiana State Supreme Court—all to argue that Southern University and its Grievance Committee are not public bodies.

Your tax dollars at work. Not a lot of money in the overall scheme of things, but an example how quixotic legal battles by state agencies make thousands upon thousands of dollars disappear into contract attorneys’ bank accounts.

Which also raises another question: Can defense attorneys always be counted on to give the best advice to clients when that advice might conflict with the attorney’s financial advantage of keeping the meter running?

 

Posted in Courts, Ethics, Finances, Judges, Lawsuits, Media, Politics, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency | 7 Comments »

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