A LACK OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN LOUISIANA!

Monday, September 14^th, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

A  LACK OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN LOUISIANA!

A good part of the nation was mesmerized recently over the six-week long Lindsey Clancy murder trial. You will recall that Clancy faced charges for the 2023 deaths of her three children. Her defense argued she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis. The prosecution argued she acted with criminal intent. 

The jury had reached an 11–1 consensus, but could not convince the holdout juror.  Her defense attorneys and numerous supporters called for the holdout juror to be kicked off the jury. The judge, for good reasoning, refused, saying it would be judicially improper and even unconstitutional not to call for a 12-person jury to convict. That’s how the law is determined and enforced in states all over America. WELL, EXCEPT ONE!  And I’m sure you can guess the one outlier state that often operates in the dark ages. That’s us folks, right here in Louisiana.

One of the most outrageous examples of judicial misconduct here in the Bayou State took place in the casino trial of former Governor Edwin Edwards.  The now notorious member of the Edwards jury, juror number 68, was removed for apparently, according to the Times Picayune, being particularly attentive throughout the trial and taking copious notes. From his questions, it seemed that juror 68 was leaning towards acquittal of the governor.

The judge in the case, one Frank Polozola, seemed harshly against Edwards and the other defendants throughout the trial. But no one thought the judge would go as far as removing a juror in the case. The reaction of the Edwards attorney was outlined in detail in Leo Honeycutt’s award-winning biography of Edwin Edwards.

“Red with anger himself, Edwards Attorney Jim Cole jumped from his chair, yelling at Judge Polozola. With the extraordinary actions of a federal judge who had unethically taken the case out of rotation, showing bias that everyone in the community saw, for that Judge to then chop a juror favorable to the defense and reduce the jury below the mandated by the United States Constitution, Cole had lost all respect for this federal judge. Edwards knew Polozola was engineering the verdict.”

Criticism of Polozola’s decision rang out across the legal community. LSU law professor Stewart Green said, "This is a bombshell. It is highly unusual. The jury is really supposed to be his own independent body.”  Former U.S. Attorney Harry Rosenthal said Polozola was on thin ice. “The danger is that the message sent to the other members of the jury is not subtle.” Lawbook Professor Lawrence Smith called Polozola’s actions “unprecedented. I’ve never heard of this before.”

Judges are supposed to be neutral. Like referees, they are supposed to interpret the law and do it fairly. After Edwards was convicted, the federal guidelines recommended a sentence of five years in prison. Polozola gave Edwards 10 years. Former Louisiana Governor Dave Treen, a Republican who was defeated in his re-election efforts by Edwards, had this to say about Polozola’s sentence. “Judge Polozola doubled Edwards sentence purely out of vindictiveness. He didn’t like him. That’s not a good reason to double someone’s sentence and I believe, a misuse of power. The trial was certainly dubious.”

So the judge in the Massachusetts trial of Lindsey Clancy got it right. The jury could not reach a consensus. It should take 12 jurors to convict unless there are some extremely detrimental reasons, like health problems of one of the jurors or a juror who seems completely out of control. None of this existed in the Edwards trial. Like Governor Treen said, the judge just didn’t like him. And that’s a poor commentary on unjust verdicts that are found too often in Louisiana,

William Faulkner summed it up well. “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Louisiana’s terrible history of criminal injustice is still with us today.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.