Yesterday, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill put out a press release amplifying one of the more unsung – but fascinating – controversies going on in Louisiana…

At the end of February, three 19th Judicial District Court judges sued Attorney General Liz Murrill, Governor Jeff Landry, and the Secretary of State in federal court, falsely accusing the Attorney General of intentionally depriving them of their constitutional rights. We are confident we will prevail in that lawsuit, but in the meantime, we have approximately 100 cases pending before those three judges in the 19th JDC: Chief Judge Donald R. Johnson, Judge Ronald R. Johnson, and Judge Gail Horne Ray. We have now moved for their recusal from those matters because they are actively suing the Attorney General, who is appearing before them either as a party or as counsel. Louisiana law does not permit that arrangement.

“A judge cannot preside over cases in which I am appearing as a party or counsel while simultaneously suing me in federal court and falsely accusing me of deliberately violating their constitutional rights. That situation destroys any appearance of impartiality. Louisiana law requires recusal, and the integrity of the judiciary depends on enforcing it.” – Attorney General Liz Murrill

Johnson, Johnson and Ray sued Murrill, and pretty much everybody else in state government, at the end of February over the passage of a judicial redistricting bill they say violates a federal consent decree which protects a host of minority judicial districts. That case is now going to be heard in the federal Middle District of Louisiana court in Baton Rouge; Judge Brian Jackson has the case.

Jackson is black, as are Johnson, Johnson and Ray. There isn’t a lot of doubt as to how this case will be decided at the district level; the action won’t really start until the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal gets the case.

But in the meantime, Murrill is going to engage in a little “make it hurt” against the three judges, because why not? Doing so puts Johnson, Johnson and Ray on notice that the state is looking to make them irrelevant, and also it’s going to focus attention on how dysfunctional the 19th JDC, the judicial district through which most of the litigation involving state government flows through, really is.

After all, there has been a big problem with judicial corruption and incompetence at the 19th JDC. That’s the court which has inflicted Eboni Rose Johnson and Trudy White on the state.

How’s this mass recusal demand going to go? It’s hard to say. Our guess is that the three judges will tell Murrill to pound sand, and that’ll push the recusal demands up to the state circuit court and even potentially the state Supreme Court. And while we have some ideas on how this will end up, what’s interesting here isn’t so much the outcome as the potential this controversy has to absolutely blow up into a fight over the nature of the Louisiana judiciary.

Which isn’t a bad fight to have at all, given the quality – of lack thereof – of the judges in this state, and especially in its capital.