Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice's Call

Chief Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson issued a letter to her colleagues in the judicial, executive and legislative branches, calling for justice for all in Louisiana and asking them to consider ways in which they can improve the justice system in the midst of recent events including the pandemic and the recent killing of Mr. George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and ensuing protests. Recent tragedies have quickly disrupted our world, taking over one hundred thousand American lives, causing millions of hardworking people to lose their jobs, and destroying countless small businesses in our communities. Chief Justice Johnson said witnessing the brazen killing of another African American, George Floyd, by police officers before our very eyes compelled her to write the letter.

In Louisiana, the Coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately killed African Americans. In addition, the country has witnessed his life and countless others, including Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, being senselessly taken by a system that espouses equal rights under the law. As a result, millions have taken to the streets to protest around the state, nation, and world. The protests—though triggered by recent events—are not about one or two isolated incidences of police violence. Instead, the protests are the consequence of centuries of institutionalized racism that has plagued the US legal system. Statistics show that the Louisiana criminal legal system disproportionately affects African Americans, who comprise 32% of our population in Louisiana, but 70% of the state's prison population. African American children in Louisiana are imprisoned at almost seven times the rate of white children. The state's prison population did not increase fivefold from 7,200 in 1978, to 40,000 in 2012 without decisive action over many years by the legislature and by prosecutors, juries, and judges around the state. Chief Justice Johnson believes she and her colleagues are part of the problem that people are protesting. She ending her writing to urge all of her counterparts who administer the law to hear the voices of the protesters. So many feel Louisiana's criminal legal system is part of the problem, and implore all involved parties to resolve to be part of the solution. Like most residents, she firmly believes in the rule of law. Still, its legitimacy is in peril when African American citizens see evidence every day of a criminal legal system that appears to value black lives less than it values white lives. She admitted the state's justice system falls far short of the equality it espouses and sees many of its worst injustices meted out in the criminal legal system. So she is now committed more than ever to ensure inequities ranging from courts being funded with fines levied on poor, disproportionately African American defendants, to the longtime use of Jim Crow laws to silence African American jurors, and laws making it easier to convict African American defendants are identified and changed.