WASHINGTON — Current Lafayette federal bankruptcy Judge Robert Summerhays was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a lifetime federal district court judgeship on Thursday.
Thursday, September 06, 2018
Friday, August 31, 2018
A federal magistrate judge in Lafayette on Friday denied a request by The Advocate and television partner KATC to unseal the amount that Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal’s office agreed to pay the minor child of a man who was fatally shot while h…
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
A judge has reset the clock for Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope to complete 173 hours of community service, although the marshal will still face jail time should he fail to finish the work within two years.
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
WASHINGTON — Attorney Barry Ashe is headed for a lifelong job as a federal district judge in New Orleans after the U.S. Senate confirmed him to the post on Tuesday.
Monday, August 27, 2018
Trial is set for October for a St. Martin Parish priest accused of possessing child pornography, KATC-TV is reporting.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Three members of the white supremacist Aryan Circle group pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria in the death of an Evangeline Parish man.
Monday, August 20, 2018
Mark Knight, the former chief executive of a Lafayette oilfield services company, pleaded no contest Monday to corrupt influencing and public bribery as part of a scheme to set up his brother in a phony 2014 drug bust.
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope should not have been given a jail sentence for failing to follow a judge's orders about community service, an appeals court has ruled.
Thursday, August 09, 2018
A Youngsville woman was sentenced Tuesday to two years and nine months in prison for stealing nearly $200,000 from a breast cancer center where she had worked as its business manager.
Tuesday, August 07, 2018
A federal jury decided Monday in favor of a former Alcohol and Tobacco Control commissioner in a lawsuit that alleged he unfairly fired a former employee of the state agency.
LAFAYETTE — Ian Howard's defense attorneys are investigating whether he'll plead not guilty by reason of insanity in his attempted murder case, a trio of charges that stem from the night he's also accused of shooting and killing a Lafayette police…
Monday, August 06, 2018
A Louisiana law that makes it a crime to threaten a public official is overly broad and thus unconstitutional, a federal appeals court has ruled.
Sunday, August 05, 2018
As "Sugartown" opens, the camera pans across acres and acres of Iberia Parish cane fields, but this is no sweet story.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Manual strangulation was the primary cause of death of Armando Frank, the 44-year-old Marksville man who died during an October 2017 struggle with Avoyelles Parish Sheriff’s deputies and a Marksville police officer, according to a forensic patholo…
Thursday, July 26, 2018
A 15th Judicial District judge on Thursday denied Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope’s longshot motion to dismiss the criminal indictment against him.
Thursday, July 26, 2018
A federal judge in Lafayette said Thursday he’s inclined to order public release of the amount Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal’s office agreed to pay this year to the young child of a man who was killed while handcuffed in the back seat of a pat…
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
A federal magistrate judge on Thursday will weigh a bid by The Advocate and its TV partner KATC to make public the terms of a recent payout to settle the case of a man who was shot dead in 2014 while handcuffed in the back seat of an Iberia Parish…
Sunday, July 15, 2018
A state-of-the-art juvenile prison in Avoyelles Parish has finally received state funding to open its doors — a long-awaited milestone for a Louisiana juvenile justice system that has seen crippling budget cuts and a rash of inmate escapes.
Monday, July 09, 2018
The ex-wife and co-defendant of former Louisiana prison warden Nate Cain pleaded guilty Monday to a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the federal corruption case in which Cain and she are charged, according to court records.
Thursday, July 05, 2018
A federal appeals court judge with New Orleans roots is among President Donald Trump's top three choices to fill the seat on the Supreme Court bench left vacant by retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, according to a person familiar with Trump's think…
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Walter Glenn Soileau, a former Breaux Bridge city court judge, has been formally charged with pandering, prostitution and other crimes.
The ex-wife and co-defendant of former Louisiana prison warden Nate Cain intends to plead guilty in the federal corruption case in which the two are charged, court records indicate.
A New Iberia man and his juvenile son who had been found guilty in the November 2015 killing of a Louisiana black bear have been sentenced.
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
White House eyes Justice Greg Guidry of Louisiana Supreme Court for federal judgeship in New Orleans
WASHINGTON — Louisiana Supreme Court Associate Justice Greg Guidry is the White House's choice to fill a vacant federal judgeship in the United States Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, two sources with knowledge of the appointment proce…
Monday, June 18, 2018
The criminal case against former prison warden Nate Cain and his ex-wife will move forward after a federal judge denied their request to suppress evidence key to their indictments for improper purchases on the Avoyelles prison's dime.
Friday, June 08, 2018
A state grand jury on Friday indicted Iberia Parish Clerk of Court Michael Thibodeaux on 14 corruption-related counts, including racketeering, theft, malfeasance, falsifying public records and perjury.
Tuesday, June 05, 2018
The U.S. Justice Department has reached a settlement with law enforcement authorities in Ville Platte intended to end their unconstitutional practice of jailing witnesses to coerce them into cooperating with the police.
Monday, May 14, 2018
The Lafayette City-Parish Council is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to propose property tax increases on the Nov. 6 ballot.
Wednesday, May 09, 2018
A state appellate court refused on Wednesday to reconsider its April ruling upholding the legality of a 1976 Louisiana law that bars felons on probation and parole from voting.
Senate confirms New Orleans federal Judge Kurt Engelhardt for 5th Circuit Court of Appeals promotion
WASHINGTON — U.S. District Court Judge Kurt Engelhardt of New Orleans is officially getting a promotion to the federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Monday, May 07, 2018
A Louisiana judge has awarded a woman and two of her children more than $41,000 after hearing testimony that sheriff's deputies used excessive force on her when she was pregnant, shouted racial slurs and erased a cellphone video of the confrontation.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
The Lafayette Parish courthouse was evacuated Wednesday after a 911 text message threatened the District Attorney’s Office, along with other courthouse personnel, and mentioned the possibility of explosives in the building.
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Stuart Kyle Duncan to a lifetime New Orleans-based seat on the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, overcoming objections from Democrats and liberal groups.
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Louisiana split juries have convicted several people wrongly, but not enough data to discern a trend
Wilfred Moliere feels somewhat vindicated now. But he recalls the isolation he felt two decades ago inside a Jefferson Parish jury room, where his doubts about the murder case against Travis Hayes were met with silence from other jurors.
On the Louisiana Senate floor this month, one lawmaker shared a dirty little secret about a calculation some prosecutors make when deciding what charges to level against a felony suspect.
By the time authorities fished Bobby Byrd out of the Red River in 2011, they were pretty sick of him.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
WASHINGTON — Wendy Vitter’s long and outspoken advocacy for outlawing abortion made her one of President Donald Trump’s most controversial picks for a federal district court judgeship. Kyle Duncan’s record of battling all the way to the Supreme Co…
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
A former Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola guard convicted of covering up an inmate beating will be retried on a federal charge of beating the handcuffed and shackled prisoner during the brutal 2014 assault.
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
A lawsuit claims Louisiana authorities have illegally detained a teenage boy for nearly one year after his arrest on a burglary charge.
Thursday, March 29, 2018
A district attorney’s office that can prosecute only murder cases. State judges suing the parish governing authority. A prisoner wresting a gun from a guard in a courthouse hallway.
The Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office has arrested a correctional deputy accused of slamming an inmate twice against a security door and then punching him above the eye.
Settlement talks are underway in the federal lawsuit against Derrick Stafford and Norris Greenhouse, the former Marksville deputy marshals convicted in the shooting death of 6-year-old Jeremy Mardis after a car chase with the boy's father.
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
A St. Landry Parish grand jury on Tuesday indicted 26-year-old Liquincy Revish, of Baton Rouge, for second-degree murder in the shooting death last year of 38-year-old Lester Bowman IV in Opelousas.
Monday, March 26, 2018
Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope’s criminal trial on seven felonies was pushed back indefinitely as Pope’s attorneys on Monday sparred with prosecutors over evidence, the proper trial venue and whether Pope should be tried on all the charges at o…
Friday, March 23, 2018
A split Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday shot down Gov. John Bel Edwards’ order that bans companies contracting with the state from discriminating against LGBT employees.
Thursday, March 22, 2018
WASHINGTON — A career federal prosecutor tapped by President Donald Trump to serve as U.S. attorney for Louisiana's sprawling Western District is headed for a U.S. Senate confirmation vote after receiving a committee nod Thursday morning.
Monday, March 19, 2018
When former Lafayette prosecutor Pat Magee got the call from Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry asking him take over as director of the agency's criminal division, Magee joked that his first reaction was, "Doggone it, Jeff."
A state judge on Monday ruled against an Acadia Parish landowner who wanted to halt construction of a 163-mile oil pipeline until resolution of a federal lawsuit aimed at shutting down the project.