Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Judicial Recusal topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee asks Law Institute to study judge recusal process, adds justices of the peace
Summary
The Criminal Justice Committee unanimously amended and reported House Concurrent Resolution 9 directing the Louisiana State Law Institute to study procedures for judicial recusal and to include justices of the peace in the review.
House Concurrent Resolution 9 directing the Louisiana State Law Institute to study procedures for judicial recusals was amended and reported out of the Louisiana House Criminal Justice Committee on May 8. The committee adopted an amendment to expand the study to include justices of the peace and voted to report the resolution as amended.
The committee said the study will examine whether criminal-court recusals should use procedures like those created in 2021–22 for civil-court recusal and that the institute will report back to the legislature by Feb. 1, 2026. "It directs the Louisiana State Law Institute to study the procedures for the recusal of judges," staff said when reading the resolution into the record.
Representative Abarek, the resolution’s author, said judges on the criminal side asked for a restudy to consider aligning criminal-court recusal procedures with the civil-court process the Law Institute previously recommended. "Instead of trying to change the law now, what we're asking is that the Law Institute restudy the recusal process for criminal court judges and, and then report back to the legislature by February first of 20 26," Abarek said.
Chair Bakula offered a committee-originated amendment to add "justices of the peace" to the text in two places; staff confirmed the amendment would place those two insertions on page 1, line 3 and page 2, line 3. The committee adopted the amendment with no objections. A motion by Chair Bakula to report HCR 9 as amended carried without objection.
The change is limited to requesting a study; no statutory changes were made. The resolution assigns to the Louisiana State Law Institute the task of evaluating whether existing civil-court recusal processes should be applied, adapted, or rejected for criminal judges and justices of the peace, and to return recommendations to the legislature by a set date.
The committee did not set any changes to judicial procedure now; HCR 9 is a study directive only and does not alter legal recusal standards or substitute an enacted statute.
