BY JOHN SIMERMAN AND ANDREA GALLO
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| 2012 File photo of Jeff Hughes. |
Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Jefferson Hughes III has admitted he committed judicial misconduct and agreed to pay more than $2,000 over a visit in 2019 to the home of a Hammond political operative who said Hughes offered him money to switch allegiances in the race for another seat on the state’s highest court.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday endorsed an agreement between Hughes and the Louisiana Judiciary Commission to publicly censure him over violations of several judicial canons. A Supreme Court spokesman said he was unaware of any previous public discipline against a justice sitting on the state’s top court.
Hughes, the court’s second-longest serving jurist, admitted bringing disrepute on the judiciary when he met with former Hammond City Councilman Johnny Blount on Oct. 30, 2019.
Blount was supporting Will Crain in a runoff against 5th Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Hans Liljeberg for an open seat alongside Hughes on the high court.
In an affidavit, Blount said Hughes offered him $5,000 to switch his support to Liljeberg. He left this business card, saying “to call him if I decided to accept his offer.”
Hughes denied offering Blount a payoff, though he acknowledged he told Blount that he might find it more financially rewarding to back Liljeberg.
The agreement between Hughes and the commission states that the payoff allegation was “unsubstantiated.”
Crain won the race. He and Hughes both were recused from the court’s vote to censure Hughes.
The Supreme Court said Hughes “acknowledges that his conduct and subsequent events flowing from it undermined the public’s confidence in the integrity, independence, and impartiality of the judiciary and brought the judiciary into disrepute.”
Hughes “accordingly acknowledges the imposition of discipline is appropriate,” Justice Scott Crichton wrote. Justices James Genovese, Jay McCallum and Piper Griffin agreed.
Chief Justice John Weimer dissented, though he didn’t necessarily disagree with the discipline. He argued in a separate opinion that the court should put on a public hearing to air the allegations against Hughes.
Crichton's opinion noted that Hughes, a Republican, has been a state judge since 1991. He rose from district judge in Livingston Parish to the First Circuit Court of Appeal in 2004 and then the Supreme Court in 2012.
Hughes was reelected without opposition in 2018 and under state law will be too old to seek reelection following his 10-year term. He did not return a message Wednesday, nor did the Baton Rouge attorney who represented him before the Judiciary Commission, John H. Smith.
Hughes and the commission agreed that he “did not engage in a pattern of misconduct” and that he wasn’t acting in his official capacity when he showed up at Blount’s house.
Days after that encounter, Hughes insisted in an interview that his actions didn’t amount to the kind of “inappropriate political and campaign activity” that judicial canons prohibit.
Hughes described his appeal to Blount, whom he hadn’t seen in years, as a private conversation. He denied offering Blount money, saying that “to suggest that I would personally pay out of my own pocket for any amount to any of these guys was a joke, really.”
Hughes, a self-described “political junkie,” said he had looked at street-level “get-out-the-vote” efforts and noticed that Crain’s campaign was underpaying Blount, who had worked on judicial campaigns for Hughes in the past.
“I did mention that the Liljeberg campaign would probably be interested in his services, but you know, that was his choice,” Hughes said then.
“I think I have free-speech rights like everybody else. If I want to go talk to somebody one-on-one and ask questions, they don’t have to talk back to me.”
In accepting discipline, however, Hughes admitted he engaged in “unauthorized partisan political activity” and failed to uphold the integrity of the judiciary.
“He is remorseful and has accepted responsibility for the negative light his conduct brought upon the judiciary, and he has committed to refrain from such conduct in the future,” the court opinion states.
Judiciary Commission records released after Wednesday’s ruling show that Hughes acknowledged that if the commission filed a disciplinary case against him, “he could not successfully defend against it.”
Crain said Wednesday that he considered the matter “appropriately closed” and insisted it hadn’t affected his work on the court.
“I have worked effectively, openly, professionally and collegially with all of my colleagues, and I will continue to do so, and they with me as well,” Crain said. “I have full confidence in the work of the Judiciary Commission and I know that they fully investigate whatever matters are before them, and I’m confident that they have arrived at an appropriate end to this matter.”
Crain was recused at the request of the commission, which said he was a witness in the case against Hughes.
The complaint against Hughes was filed by another rival candidate, Richard Ducote, who lost in the primary. Ducote, who has fought the Judiciary Commission over its lack of transparency, called it encouraging that the commission and the Supreme Court brought the complaint against Hughes into the open.
“I hope the fact that something came of this would encourage attorneys to report judicial misconduct,” Ducote said.
“I’m always happy when anybody who is in a compromised position takes full responsibility for what they did, and that seems to be what happened here.”
Liljeberg did not respond to a message seeking comment. Crain beat Liljeberg handily in the runoff for the Supreme Court seat, taking 57% of the vote.
The court filings make no mention of previous Judiciary Commission and FBI investigations into Hughes, which wrapped in 2004.
The outcome of those investigations remained hidden from public view for almost two decades.
The feds would drop their investigation after five years. Soon after, Hughes wrote a series of secret apology letters to people who had appeared years earlier in his Livingston Parish courtroom over family law cases.
Hughes professed sorrow over how he had treated their cases in the letters, which The Advocate | The Times-Picayune reported on in 2019.
Hughes penned one to Brenda Nicholson, a grandmother who was fighting over custody of her grandson amid a child abuse case involving the stepfather.
Hughes had been in a romantic relationship with the attorney who represented the boy’s stepfather and mother. Nicholson accused Hughes of jailing her for 11 days out of personal interest in the custody case; Hughes has defended himself by saying that the attorney left the case before he ruled over custody.
“I am writing to apologize to you for my actions,” Hughes later wrote to Nicholson. “I have come to the conclusion that my actions were inimical to the pursuit of the truth and that, because of my actions, justice suffered. For this I am deeply remorseful.”
Hughes wrote a second apology letter to David Fleming and a third to Fleming’s attorney in 2004, after Fleming fought for custody of his sons in Hughes’ courtroom. Fleming tried to have Hughes recused from the case, but the judge fought to remain over the custody case.
“I am writing to apologize to you for any inconvenience, aggravation, extra work, or costs caused to you by my actions,” Hughes later wrote to Fleming. “I made mistakes in the way I handled the case of Fleming v. Fleming and for this I am deeply sorry.”
The outcome of the past Judiciary Commission investigation into Hughes has remained walled off in secrecy, despite the Supreme Court adopting a rule change last year that allows discussion of commission cases once files have closed.
Though Hughes wrote the apology letters, it remains unclear whether he did so under orders of the Judiciary Commission, and whether he received any additional consequences. Voters had no way of knowing about Hughes’ past apology letters when they elevated him first to the appeals court and then elected him to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in 2004, or to the Louisiana Supreme Court for the first time in 2012.
Those who received them were ordered to stay quiet about their Judiciary Commission complaints.
Hughes filed a lawsuit last year against The Advocate | The Times-Picayune over an editorial that criticized his handling of the Nicholson case. He also sued the executive director of a legal watchdog group over a 2019 letter to the editor. Neither lawsuit has been resolved.
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