On Thursday, State District Judge Jessie LeBlanc of Louisiana signed and sent letters of resignation. This comes after calls from the community for her resignation due to a slew of scandals rocked the Louisiana judge, and led to calls from numerous attorneys as well as Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards for her to step down.
The first scandal came out in January that Judge LeBlanc had had an affair with Assumption Parish Chief Deputy Bruce Prejean that is now over. This led to an announcement that a review of around 600 cases the judge and chief deputy were connected to would begin. At the time, Leblanc denied everything, but subsequently admitted to the affair. Prejean was demoted.
Then, Assumption Parish Sheriff Leland Falcon released text messages, reported on by WBRZ, between Judge LeBlanc and Chief Deputy Prejean, in December of 2018 when their relationship apparently soured. According to reports, while the two remained friends after their affair ended in 2016, LeBlanc seems to have received an “anonymous package” in December of 2018 with information that ended her and Prejean’s friendship.
In the angry text messages, LeBlanc goes on racist rants, dropping N-bombs while calling Assumption Deputy Erick Taylor “thug N***** Erick.” She also accuses Prejean of cheating on her with the law clerk—who is African American—of another judge, saying “At least I was never unfaithful to you with anyone — much less a N*****.” As a result of these new revelations, District Attorney Ricky Babin told WBRZ that his office would be informing “every single defendant,” who had appeared before LeBlanc since 2012.
LeBlanc then tried to say that these text messages were doctored. According to AP, the former Judge now admits to having written those texts: “I profusely apologize for that. I should have never said it.”
According to AP, LeBlanc’s resignation was filled with the apology-non-apology we have come to expect from self-absorbed racists, writing “My decision is one borne out of prayer and fully cognizant of what this ordeal has done to my family. I thank God for them every day. I believe, however, as much as I wish to fight the irresponsible and vicious attacks, it is in my family’s best interests and that of my 23rd JDC community, to stop the madness. We do not need another Judge being endlessly attacked and vilified at the expense of the integrity of our system of justice.”
We do not need racist judges. That’s the thing we do not need. We live in a racist country with a long racist history. As a result, the systems of justice in our country are rife with racism and racists. And Louisiana’s history of racism is very deep. This isn’t the first Louisiana judge outed by their own mouth for being racist. This will likely not be the last. It is, however, an important reminder that judges are people, and people are biased to various degrees in various ways. And most of our own biases and flaws come from the world around us.
LeBlanc oversaw cases from Ascension, Assumption, and St. James parishes. These parishes, according to census data, include around 165,000 people, over 25% of which are African American.