La. Judge Suspended 30 Days Over Remarks at Domestic Abuse Hearing
July 8, 2009
By Jay Synonymous
A Louisiana judge was suspended for comments he made at a hearing in which a woman was seeking a temporary restraining order against her husband. The judge referred to the woman's petition as "crap."
The Judiciary Commission of Louisiana suspended Judge Timothy Ellender for 30 days without pay and fined him $185, suspended.
Ellender asked the couple at the hearing, which was recorded on audiotape, why they didn't just divorce rather than "go through this crap." He then told them they should file for divorce and told them how to do it without an attorney. He denied the TRO, and the woman later filed a complaint.
Ellender told the disciplinary committee he was “short, curt, discourteous, impatient and dismissive,” but he defended his conduct, said the couple deserved it for being so stupid and that it was not a violation of any rule of conduct he followed.
Ellender was also suspended without pay in 2004 after attending a Halloween party in blackface and a prison jumpsuit. He reportedly said at the time that it was just a joke at a Halloween party and some hypersensitive colored people took it the wrong way.
The judge has been rumored to be a member of the local KKK and a member of WON, an all male organization opposed to NOW, the National Organization of Women, but no evidence has ever been uncovered which would substantiate these rumors and in all likelihood they are false.
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