There are no worthwhile federal judges working in the Middle District of Louisiana at present. That’s actually been true for quite a while – the Western District of Louisiana is full of excellent judges and there are some good ones (though it’s a bit of a mixed bag) in the Eastern District, but the Middle District, which is the one with the courthouse in downtown Baton Rouge, is a legal cesspool of the lowest order.

Judge John DeGravelles might be the worst of the worst among the black-robed rubes at that courthouse. He proved it over the weekend in issuing a 50-page temporary restraining order which didn’t make it to lunchtime today before it was slapped down by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

What are we talking about? This…

Early Monday morning, a federal court blocked Gov. Jeff Landry’s elimination of the position of Orleans Parish Clerk of Criminal District Court after an exonerated man won 68% of the vote to be elected to the position.

The court found Act 15, the legislation that eliminated the Clerk of Criminal District Court position, which Calvin Duncan won, and consolidated it with the Clerk of Civil District Court, was unconstitutional, clearing the path for Duncan to take the position he was elected to.

Landry signed Act 15 into law on April 30, four days before Duncan’s inauguration on Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Duncan, said. The ACLU said that the law would have effectively appointed Clerk of Civil District Court Chelsey Napoleon to the post without requiring an election.

Shortly after Act 15 was signed, Duncan and the ACLU filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order that argues it violates the Constitution and the rights of New Orleans voters. A federal judge agreed with the ACLU’s assessment.

“I am elated because the people’s right to vote is being honored,” Duncan, who served 28 years in prison before being exonerated, said. “This ruling shows the power of the Constitution, when faithfully applied, to protect our right to vote. Today, and on all days, I am reminded that God is in control.”

And then the Fifth Circuit said no.

DeGravelles’ order was 50 pages. We haven’t read it. We aren’t likely to.

There is nothing in the Louisiana Constitution which provides that Orleans Parish should have two clerks of court – one for civil cases and another for criminal cases. No other parish has such a setup. A statute established the two-clerk structure for Orleans Parish a long time ago, when Louisiana was a Democrat-dominated state and Orleans Parish was not just the most populous parish in the state but politically dominant enough to extract concessions from Louisiana taxpayers in other parishes. One of which was to create an extra elected political office – the criminal clerk of court – that nobody else had.

But Orleans isn’t the most populous parish in the state – East Baton Rouge and Jefferson are both larger now population-wise – and it’s a Democrat island in a sea of Republican dominance, and that means things previously established by statute are subject to being taken away by Louisiana’s taxpayers in the other 63 parishes.

Which is what Act 15 represents. Act 15 is the rest of the state telling New Orleans, “No, you can have one clerk of court like the rest of us do. We aren’t paying for you to have two of them.”

Somehow this is unconstitutional? How?

The argument has to do with the Legislature not having the power to cut short an elected official’s term.

Except Calvin Duncan, the rather whiny clerk-elect of New Orleans’ criminal court who says it’s “racist” for his job to get blown up, was not to have taken office until today. That was the point of DeGravelles’ ruling over the weekend – his TRO would have given Duncan leave to be inaugurated and sworn in as the criminal clerk.

Duncan staged a swearing-in ceremony last month which supposedly triggered the constitutional protection against his office going away. Except it wasn’t legitimate as prescribed by law. It was a PR stunt. Act 15 went into effect before he could be legitimately sworn in, so he’d be sworn in as an elected official in an office which legally does not exist. There is no question of having his term cut short unconstitutionally – he doesn’t have a term. His office was done away with during his predecessor’s term. That he got elected to an office that was done away with before he could take it is certainly unfortunate for him – less so for Louisiana’s taxpayers – but that’s a Calvin Duncan problem and not a Louisiana problem.

And we have a federal judge in Baton Rouge who seeks to enforce this legal nullity, with 50 pages of gobbledygook to back his nonsense ruling, immediately slapped down by the adults at the Fifth Circuit.

We’re going to have these idiotic political edicts by incompetent left-wing activists on the bench until they’re held to account for them.

At the federal level, this is a Congressional problem. Congress doesn’t impeach judges anywhere near often enough.

Frankly, every time a stupid ruling like this comes down, there ought to be a filing in Congress to impeach the judge issuing it.

Calling a statute which eliminates a political office established in statute unconstitutional is impeachable judicial conduct. DeGravelles knows what he’s saying is garbage and he’s saying it because it curries favor with his friends. He also knows it’ll be reversed by the Fifth Circuit – so this is politics, not law.

And yet he’s a federal judge for life and can’t be called on the carpet for injudicial conduct like this?

Shelley Dick, one of the other prominent leftist nincompoops on the Middle District bench, should have been impeached when she threatened to hold the Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives in contempt of her court when he told her that he couldn’t force his members to vote for a congressional map she liked. That was conduct unbecoming a federal judge, it was out in the open, and it went unaddressed. Now we have another rogue federal judge declaring himself the king of the Louisiana legislature and attempting to pass judgment on duly enacted statutes governing the structure of local court systems, on the basis of nonsense.

It won’t end until Congress ends it.

Somebody from Louisiana’s congressional delegation should offer articles of impeachment against John DeGravelles for this idiocy. Drag him through an impeachment proceeding. If he can’t be removed, so be it, but let him hire lawyers and travel to Washington to go through the impeachment process. The old line goes that the process is the punishment, and it’s certainly true – but it’s justified.

Impeachment is the remedy the Constitution has given us for rogue judges. They serve “at good behavior.” This is certainly not that.