Talk about irony… or serendipity.
The disgraced Louisiana judge who was accidentally captured on her own home surveillance camera spewing racial slurs at a Black man, has now been temporarily replaced by a Black judge.
Lafayette Judge Michelle Odinet has been suspended by the Louisiana Supreme Court for the duration of its investigation after she was heard on video calling an alleged Black burglar in her driveway the N-word on more than one occasion.
A male voice can be heard at Odinet’s home yelling and laughing, “And Mom’s yelling n—-r, n—-r.”
Odinet follows up while laughing: “We have a n—-r, it’s a n—-r, like a roach.”
This is DISGUSTING! Judge Michelle Odinet is captured on video using racial slurs while reviewing home security footage. People's lives are in HER HANDS on a daily basis. This level of hate & racial bias should not be in our courtrooms! She needs to RESIGN! pic.twitter.com/TVny8kcaUZ
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) December 15, 2021
Odinet tried to soften the damage of her words by saying she didn’t recall uttering the racial epithet because she was under the influence of sedatives. After the calls for her to resign became deafening, Odinet decided to take a leave of absence, which was quickly followed by the supreme court’s suspension.
Incredibly, the woman stepping into Odinet’s role for an indefinite period is the first African American judge in Lafayette history, Vanessa Harris, CNN reports.
Judge Harris will remain in the seat in Lafayette, a town about 140-mile drive northwest of New Orleans, until such time as Odinet returns from her unpaid leave of absence or is removed from the bench. In the latter scenario, an election would be held to vote on a new judge.
The news station also relayed that an attorney representing that Odinet will decide in the coming weeks on whether she’ll even try to return to the bench.
