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19th JDC District Judge Eboni Johnson Rose Photo provided A Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana sign hang in the courtroom during the Chief Justice Pascal F. Calogero, Jr. Courthouse Naming Ceremony at the Louisiana Supreme Court in New Orleans, Tuesday, Dec.
10, 2019. Chief Justice Calogero retired in 2008 after 36 years serving as a Justice of the Court. For 18 of those years, he served as Chief Justice.
During his career, he spearheaded the restoration and return of the Louisiana Supreme Court to Royal street in the French Quarter. Chief Justice Calogero died a year ago. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Baton Rouge judge Eboni Johnson Rose was the focus of five judicial misconduct complaints in little more than a month's span last year.
The mistakes she made on the bench in four different 19th Judicial District Court criminal cases were so alarming, Louisiana Supreme Court justices took the unusual step of immediately removing her from the bench last August while an investigation into her actions played out. That investigation reached its terminus this week when the Supreme Court, in a hotly contested split decision, agreed to a two-month unpaid suspension for Johnson Rose. Three jurists on the state’s court of authority — including Chief Justice John Weimer — lobbied to have heftier fines and stiffer sanctions levied against the first-term district court judge.
But a majority of the justices agreed that the embattled Johnson Rose deserved a second chance. According to a consent order she reached with the Judiciary Commission of Louisiana, Johnson Rose escaped the kind of harsh suspension that has befallen other troubled Louisiana judges in the past. The Advocate obtained and reviewed a copy of the joint petition for discipline by consent.
The 97-page report indicates Johnson Rose conceded to making a number of mistakes that violated judicial canons that govern Louisiana judges’ behavior. Investigators determined she misapplied the law in a handful of rulings she made that were “contrary to the plain language” of state statutes. They said she failed to show competence, and her errors “undermine(d) faith in the confidence of a fair and impartial judiciary.
” But Johnson Rose never skirted her miscues and fully cooperated with the Judiciary Commission throughout the investigation. Although her misconduct was “egregious” and serious, there were significant mitigating factors that worked in Johnson Rose’s favor and warranted a “sanction far short of removal,” according to the report. “Due to her inexperience, she has, at times, clearly placed efficiency over accuracy.
Or been too willing to rely upon certain representations provided to her by attorneys appearing before her and/or has not taken the time necessary to make sure her understanding is on a solid footing,” attorneys for the Judicial Commission wrote. “The misconduct committed was not the product of bad faith, done for personal gain, or due to laziness or indifference; nor were Judge Rose’s actions at issue undertaken to exploit her position or to satisfy any personal desires,” the report went on to state. Order for suspension and more Johnson Rose, her attorney and members of the Judiciary Commission signed the discipline order March 28.
The state Supreme Court finalized the agreement in a subsequent order released Wednesday. Johnson Rose will remain suspended from her judicial duties for another two months — this time without pay. She was also placed on probation for two years and ordered to pay the judiciary $11,196 to cover portions of the investigation as well as part of the tab for her temporary replacements.
During one of the two months of her unpaid suspension, Johnson Rose must regularly sit in on criminal proceedings and observe other, more seasoned judges — she can't sit in on cases involving her father or uncle, who are also judges in the same courthouse. She must complete an extra 10 hours of continuing legal education training both years she is on probation and meet quarterly with a mentor judge chosen by the Judiciary Commission for consultation. Following her suspension, the commission will designate a judge to observe her in court periodically for the first month she is back on the bench.
If Johnson Rose fails to comply with those terms, state Supreme Court justices can again remove her for an additional four months of unpaid suspension, which were deferred. The Judiciary Commission investigated each of the complaints through its Office of Special Counsel. Investigators determined Johnson Rose’s immediate disqualification was necessary to protect the public from a " substantial threat of serious harm " due to the flood of complaints against her in a such a short period.
In March 2024, the judge convicted Donald Steele, a former Baton Rouge police officer accused of sexual misconduct against a Southern University student, of "misdemeanor grade" malfeasance in office. Attorneys pointed out there is no such offense in Louisiana law, and she acquitted the defendant three weeks later, drawing intense objections from prosecutors. The First Circuit Court of Appeal overturned Johnson Rose in September and reinstated Steele’s felony conviction.
Then in May 2024, Johnson Rose had to vacate the guilty plea of Texas lawyer who admitted to setting his ex-girlfriend's Baton Rouge home on fire, after the judge realized she suspended too much of the man’s prison time. But the commission reserved its harshest criticisms of Johnson Rose's behavior for a pair of cases that reached disposition in April 2024. A botched verdict and a contentious bench conference Eleven days after she reversed the verdict in Steele’s case, Johnson Rose had another run-in with state prosecutors.
The judge, who is Black, accused East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore’s office of “systematically targeting Black men” during an April 29, 2024, sidebar with prosecutors and public defenders in her courtroom. The judge fumed that attorneys were requesting another postponement in a domestic battery case that languished on her docket, and sought to have the defendant plead guilty to crimes he denied committing. She was upset that the conviction was not expungable and would remain on the defendant’s criminal record forever.
“The young man doesn’t have any fricking felonies. And I know that the DA probably wants every young Black man in prison, but I don’t,” Johnson Rose told attorneys during the bench conference, according to transcripts. “And this case is goddamn 4 years old now,” she also said.
“And that’s the best that y’all can come up with? You’re just going to what, stick every n*****r in jail?” In the days after, Johnson Rose met privately with Assistant District Attorney Chaz Morgan, one of the prosecutors involved in the sidebar, and later with East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore. The judge apologized for her behavior during the bench conference. Yet during both meetings, she sought to address the perception that prosecutors routinely try to strike Black prospectives from jury panels in criminal cases and a perceived bias in plea offers made by the state.
Moore reported Johnson Rose to the Judiciary Commission after transcripts of the sidebar were released publicly and her comments were aired on news telecasts. Investigators weren’t swayed by the fact that Johnson Rose didn’t realize the bench conference was being recorded and thought the comments would remain between her and attorneys. They said her use of a racial slur in the courtroom became “very public” and eroded public confidence in the courts.
“In short, there can be no excuse for what Judge Rose said, and Judge Rose, to her credit, does not offer one. She takes full responsibility,” the consent order said. Johnson Rose agreed it was inappropriate to address her grievances during the private conversations with Moore and Morgan and told the Office of Special Counsel she doesn’t believe the DA’s Office is racially biased.
State investigators concluded Johnson Rose “applied impermissible pressure on the state to alter its plea offer” when she denied their request for continuance and lobbied for a better deal on the defendant’s behalf. Consequently, all charges were dismissed. One day after the contentious sidebar, state Supreme Court justices overturned the conviction of a Baton Rouge teacher accused of bashing a car on a flooded street with a baseball bat and threatening its occupants with a gun.
Johnson Rose presided over the teacher’s 2023 trial and originally read out a verdict of "not guilty ," but then returned everyone to the courtroom and issued a guilty verdict, saying the jury had misunderstood the instructions and inadvertently rendered the wrong outcome. The Supreme Court, in overturning the verdict , ruled that Johnson Rose had improperly met with jurors alone after the trial and violated constitutional protections against double jeopardy. One of the justices went so far as to question her "professional competency.
" Two sets of polling slips provided to the jurors during deliberations in the trial were lost. Investigators said Johnson Rose mishandled her “administrative responsibilities” as a judge by failing to deliver the slips to the Clerk of Court so they could be preserved in the record. In a sworn statement, Johnson Rose admitted to the Office of Special Counsel the verdict forms and polling slips given to jurors were “confusing and incorrect.
” She said she worked with her staff immediately after the debacle to revamp the forms in accordance with state law to prevent any future hiccups. Mitigating factors in the findings In making their recommendation, the Judiciary Commission compared Johnson Rose to other judges who have been disciplined for making what the panel called "quirk errors" from the bench. The most recent was in October.
The state Supreme Court suspended St. John the Baptist District Judge Vercell Fiffie for six months without pay and fined him $9,125 after he disobeyed an order from the Fifth Circuit appeals court, recalled two bench warrants issued by another district judge, and refused to sign multiple arrest warrants in cases when there was probable cause. The Supreme Court found that Fiffie was resistant to feedback from the Judiciary Commission and “displayed a pattern of uncooperation” throughout the process.
But Johnson Rose showed sincere remorse and took responsibility for her misgivings, the commission said. The panel took note of significant changes she made to correct her failures even before she was removed from the bench, such as fixing the verdict forms in her criminal cases. She underwent counseling, got a judge to mentor her and took brushed up on her training.
Last month, Johnson Rose completed a graduate program for judicial studies at the University of Nevada-Reno. “She has further pledged to continue undertaking such significant efforts once allowed to return to the bench, to further ensure similar legal errors do not recur in the future,” the discipline report stated..
