We haven’t, at least that I recall, done anything here at The Hayride about Judge Gail Horne Ray in Baton Rouge. She’s perhaps one of the best examples of criminal-friendly judges you’ll find, and Judge Ray has a special place in her heart, it seems, for people accused of rape.
Back in May, Newsweek had an article about Judge Ray’s very strange ruling which overturned the rape conviction of a man named Donald Link, who was convicted of rape back in 1972 and given a life sentence. Link apparently raped a woman at knife-point, which is a quite impolite thing to do, and earlier this year he was simply asking that he be made eligible for parole.
Judge Ray decided she’d give him the bonus plan.
A Louisiana judge was criticized by prosecutors for making an “unheard of” ruling that overturned a rape conviction. East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore asked the state Supreme Court to void District Judge Gail Horne Ray’s decision to throw out Donald Ray Link’s conviction altogether after Link asked the judge to reduce his sentence for parole. Link was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of rape in 1973. “I’ve never seen this done ever or heard of it ever done before,” Moore told Baton Rouge’s WBRZ-TV in an interview earlier this month. “Clearly what was before her was something that was really simple to rule on and then to expand it to finding someone not guilty? It’s just something that’s unheard of.” Parole or pardon processes are typically left to a state board or the governor, not judges. Newsweek reached out to Ray’s office via email for comment.
The judge’s decision was less than celebrated by the higher-ups in Louisiana’s judicial establishment. That’s putting it mildly – in fact, her ruling lasted about a week before the state Supreme Court stepped in to give her the raspberry…
Louisiana’s highest court has reversed a decision made by 19th Judicial District Judge Gail Horne Ray. Judge Horne Ray, in April, tossed out the 1973 conviction of rapist Donald Ray Link. Link was only in court in April to request being allowed to become eligible for parole. Judge Horne Ray was in the process of reviewing transcripts from Link’s original trial to prepare to rule on that request when she claimed she found “improper instructions” given to the jury during the original trial. She decided that Link deserved a new trial for what she called a “glaring error.” Justices of the state supreme court on Thursday reinstated the conviction, denied Link’s request to be granted parole, and admonished the judge. Justices wrote that Judge Horne Ray ignored the fact that the error would not have been considered an error at the time of the original trial because certain rules about jury instruction were different. Associate Justice Scott J. Crichton also chose to write a separate opinion where he called out the judge for ignoring the demands of the higher court. Judge Horne Ray had initially faced complaints from Link’s defense team about the length of time it was taking her to decide if he was eligible for parole. Justices stepped in and ordered her to rule on that request with urgency or be held in contempt. Crichton wrote in a concurring opinion that the judge’s response to the court’s order was concerning. “I write separately to express my concern about a district court judge engaging in such a patent abuse of discretion in response to an order from this Court,” wrote Crichton. “In this case, the district court judge had delayed ruling on defendant’s motion to clarify sentence for an inordinate time despite repeated instructions to act. This Court’s remand order was clear. It simply directed the district court judge to rule in a timely manner or show cause why she should not be held in contempt. The district court judge’s ill-conceived response to the order was to issue a grossly erroneous ruling that had a retaliatory if not contemptuous tone and, incredibly, resulted in the fashioning of an illegal remedy that even defendant had not requested.”
And the Link case isn’t the only thing on Judge Ray’s record which raises eyebrows. Meet D’Aundre Cox…
According to an arrest affidavit, Baton Rouge police began investigating the allegations against Cox in November after the victim’s mother reported him. The victim was 12 when the sexual abuse began in November 2021. Cox was listed in reports as a neighbor and acquaintance of the victim. She told officers she was playing with him in the yard when he suggested they go to his house. Once there, Cox asked her if she “wanted to play a game.” The girl told investigators that he then put a gun on the table and threatened to kill her older brother. He led her into a bedroom, where he locked the door and raped her, the affidavit alleges. The victim described a second incident that happened later in the month. She said Cox confronted her as she was standing near a gate outside her house and showed her a gun in his waistband. He lured her back to his house, this time threatening to kill her older brother as well as her mother, and raped her again, the girl told police.
Cox was arrested last year, but when the case went in front of Judge Ray, she sprung him from jail on a greatly-reduced bond and some sort of way the district attorney’s office wasn’t even aware of it and Moore had to scramble to put this menace back into jail.
We’re talking April of last year, this is. Judge Ray has only been on the bench since January of 2023.
She’s also the presiding judge in the Madison Brooks case. You’ll remember that one – Madison Brooks was the LSU student who got way too drunk at a bar in Tigerland and then got in the car with four guys, who had their way with her and left her on the side of the road along Burbank Drive, where she was then hit by a car and killed. The four have been charged with rape, which might ultimately make for a tough call for a jury – how consensual is it when the girl is so wasted she’s out of her mind?
In any event, having Judge Ray on the Brooks case is problematic, to say the least.
Why? Well, it turns out that Judge Ray has a son who likes to rape women. So much so that he’s spent most of his adult life in prison for it.
Meet Nelson Dan Taylor, Jr., who’s the star of our show…
The judge’s son, Nelson Dan Taylor Jr., was convicted at age 17 after admitting to a series of rapes. Taylor, a former Baton Rouge Magnet High School track star, was accused of breaking into the homes of six girls between October 1995 and April 1996 and raping them. Amid the investigation, detectives said seven of nine girls victimized in a series of attacks were BRHS students. Taylor’s plea deal took a possible life term off the table and he was sentenced to 50 years in prison. As part of a plea deal, he was required to serve at least 25 years.
Nelson Taylor was back in the news last week, as it turns out, and for behavior along similar lines…
A man convicted on two counts of rape in 1997 and on probation until 2036 was arrested after allegedly exposing himself to a maid at a St. George hotel. Nelson Dan Taylor, 45, is accused of one count of obscenity. The East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office secured an arrest warrant for Taylor, who is the son of 19th Judicial District Judge Gail Horne Ray. He was booked into jail Sunday. Detectives said the incident occurred last Tuesday at a hotel off Siegen Lane. The victim said she was mopping a floor when Taylor approached her. She said that when Taylor asked for extra towels, she “observed a weird movement with his hand and moved behind her cleaning cart.” Moments later, she said, Taylor stepped from behind the cart and she saw that he was seeking sexual gratification. The sheriff’s office said a hotel security camera corroborated the victim’s statement. The video showed Taylor leaving the hotel through a rear door and throwing towels in a trash can before getting into his truck. Detectives said the victim was able to identify Taylor from a photo array.
As it turns out, though, this is a married man. Nelson Taylor and Freda Allen were married back in 2019. The wedding was announced at Zola.com, the wedding site. But if you hit the link to the wedding, it’s been removed. Why?
Well, maybe the incident at the hotel on Siegen might have had something to do with it. Or maybe it had to do with this…
Yep.
Ted James was a groomsman in this perverted rapist’s wedding.
Does this paint Ted James as being as rape-friendly as Judge Ray? Well…
We don’t want to go that far.
But it would seem like if you’re in politics and you have ambitions of higher office than state rep, which at the time would be a good description of James, this would be a wedding you might skip out on serving as a groomsman.
Who knows what that bachelor party was like.
This stuff isn’t dispositive. But it’s concerning. We know that James voted three separate times in 2021, his last year in the legislature, against banning sexually-confused men from joining girls’ sports teams. Now we find out he’s a groomsman in a rapist’s wedding – and it doesn’t look like the rapist has gotten his act together based on what happened last week.
Was this all political? Was James just lending some respectability to Judge Ray’s son’s wedding? She wasn’t a judge yet.
We’ve had people tell us that pulling on the thread of Ted James’ personal life is something you need to prepare yourself for, because what comes from that is more than a little…unusual.
And our default position is that what these people do in their personal lives is really none of our business. Except the absolute last thing Baton Rouge can afford right now is to get stuck with a LaToya Cantrell carrying on a seedy extramarital affair on the taxpayer’s dime, or worse, to have an Andrew Gillum mess on our hands (he’s the former mayor of Tallahassee who almost beat Ron DeSantis for governor of Florida back in 2018 only to be found naked and unconscious in a Miami hotel room full of drugs and male prostitutes not too long after).
Does Ted James give off an Andrew Gillum vibe? We’re not sure yet. But we’re psyching ourselves up to pull on that thread.