Louisiana Judge Suspended After Calling Domestic Abuse Claim “Crap”

Whatever judicial temperament may be, Louisiana Judge Timothy Ellender seems to have little of it. Judge Ellender was suspended for violating the code of judicial conduct in statements that he made at a 2007 domestic abuse hearing. It is not the first brush of Ellender with controversy.

In the hearing, Ellender, who sits on the 32nd Judicial District Court for the Parish of Terrebonne, dismissed a request for a protective order by Eula Warren because the husband Charles Warren, Sr. allegedly only threatened to beat his wife. A strange approach for a court in requiring a spousal beating before a protective order. Instead of a protective order, Ellender pressed the couple to get a divorce rather than “go through this c-r-a-p.” Given the absence of a bearing, Ellender declared “Heat, big smoke, but no fire. Dismissed. You want a divorce, get a divorce. You’re not getting a TRO. See y’all later.”

Here is how the hearing ended:

The hearing ended with the following dialogue:
THE COURT: All right. It says: “On Sunday, February 11th, we were in Subway eating.”

Can’t you find a better place to eat than that? “Before we went to the parade. My daughter, Sabrina, two, was acting up in the store and didn’t want to sit down to eat. He told Sabrina if she didn’t stop he was going to bring her to the bathroom and it was going to be a bloody mess.” True?
MR. WARREN: No, sir. I told her that I was going to take her in the bathroom and whip her booty and make her booty bleed.
THE COURT: That’s good. Good for you. “When we got to the parade route and park[ed], he started on me. He told me he wished that he – wished that we would … [l]eave, and that he wanted a divorce. He was mad because my uncle and his brother asked him if he beat me. He threatened to beat me three or four times a day. He told me that if I didn’t look at him when he was talking he would punch me in the face. At one time he threatened to throw his coffee in my face. My girls were sitting in the back seat and they had started to fight over some toy. He told them they needed to stop.”

Fortunately, statements made in court are protected from defamation actions so Subway has no recourse against the Court for disparaging its fine food products.

Previously, Ellender was suspended for six months for wearing black face and a jumpsuit to a Halloween party, here.

Here is the recommendation of discipline: 09O0736.opn

For the full story, click here.