Louisiana Voice

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.

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.

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:

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.

So, Jeff Landry and sock puppet Liz Murrill believe that posting the Ten Commandments in every single classroom in every single Louisiana school is critical to producing cookie-cutter model citizens?

Landry even went on record as expressing his belief that if they had been posted in the classrooms of would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, the man who attempted to shoot Donald Trump, he might not have felt the compulsion to do what he did.

Really?

Well, maybe if a few other Bible verses were posted in classrooms, the carnage might be even greater in terms of mass shootings, adultery, and various other sins of the flesh and spirit. They’re most likely verses you won’t hear your minister say much about in his Sunday sermons. Let’s take a look (you may wish to read the boldface passages more than once to get the full implications):

Leviticus 25:44-46: If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.

2 Kings 5:28-29: But the king asked, “What is the matter?” She replied, “This woman said to me, ‘Come, let’s eat your son today, then we will eat my son tomorrow.’ Then the next day I said to her, ‘Kill your son so we can eat him,’ but she had hidden her son.”

1 Samuel 15:3: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Isaiah 13:15-18: “Whoever is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives violated.”

Psalm 137:9: Blessed [is] the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock; the children represent the future generations, and so must be destroyed if the enemy is truly to be eradicated.

Joshua 6:21: “They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.”

Numbers 31:17-18: Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Judges 19:22-29: While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.” The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and [my] concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don’t do such an outrageous thing.” But the men would not listen to him. So, the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight. When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, “Get up; let’s go.” But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home. When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel.

Ezekiel 15:17: But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. You went to him, and he possessed your beauty. You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. (WHAT?!!)

1 Samuel 18:25: Saul replied, “Say to David, ‘The king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies.’

Genesis 19:31-36: One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.” That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” So, they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again, he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. So, both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father.

2 Kings 2:23-24: From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.

Exodus 21:20-21: Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.

Ephesians 6:5: Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.

Deuteronomy 25:11-12: If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35: Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

1 Timothy 2:11-12: A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.

Ezekiel 23:19-21: Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

And the Republicans have their panties in a wad over the content found in our libraries. (Sigh).

What’s that, you say? Each of the aforementioned examples are found in the Old Testament and Old Testament laws taught us that we were sinners who needed a sacrifice, but Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice that freed us from the laws that no one followed perfectly? Really?

But…but…the Ten Commandments were handed down to Moses in the Book of Exodus, the second book of… the Old Testament. Are you saying that Jesus’s ultimate sacrifice freed us from the Ten Commandments? Just asking.

I await an answer from Jeff Landry and sock puppet Liz Murrill.