Crowley Post Signal

Polozola bows out
  After a brazen, unprecedented attempt to remove his own personal case from the state district court in Baton Rouge, Judge Polozola recused himself from the Edwards trial.
Bowing from pressure in the media and legal experts all over the country, Polozola caved in and removed himself from the case.
   In a long winded 18 page document in which he recused himself, 15 pages were devoted to excuses as to why he was stepping down. It seems to me, one page would have been sufficient.
   A nice judge like Polozola whose decorum in his court room and private life is polite, courteous, well mannered, even handed, respectful of lawyers appearing before him, fair and impartial with no preconceived notions, no biases and no prejudices, should not have to write 15 pages of excuses.
  Still, if on the other hand he ruled 99 times out of a 100 against defense lawyers’ motions, I can understand why this might give rise to speculation that those 15 pages were necessary.
  Polozola, himself, claimed that he suffered “mental anguish and impairment of function” as a result of a car accident and during this time the record shows that he filed prescriptions for Oxy-Contin, a powerful and addictive drug to alleviate pain and suffering: this during the trial of Edwards. Polozola now claims “emphatically and clearly for the record that at all times during the course of this case, I was mentally competent and physically able to preside in this case.” Which Polozola are we to believe? First he says he was impared and now he says he wasn’t.
   Edwards’ attorneys question Polozola’s apparent bias against Edwards through out the trial and his bizarre behavior at times in the belief that it may have been prompted by his pain and the powerful medication he was taking. They say records of Polozola’s testimony could help show that narcotic painkillers made him erratic and paranoid while sitting in judgment of Edwards.
   Before Judge Janice Clark could hear the case to force Polozola to release the records, the federal prosecutors filed a motion claiming that releasing the records to attorneys for Edwards posed a “threat to national interest.” Within 20 minutes, repeat 20 minutes, of filing the motion by the federal prosecutors, Polozola issued his order to overrule the state judge handling his own case.
   Nathan Z. Dershowitz, a nationally known attorney, called the intervention in the accident case outrageous. Dershowitz said, “The notion that a federal judge can take over and enter orders in his own state case, in which he is a party, is to my knowledge unprecedented and shocking”.
   Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University commented, “this is really astonishing. Polozola cannot be the judge of his own case. That’s the first commandment of judicial ethics.”
   Harry Rosenberg, a prominent Louisiana attorney and former U. S. attorney stated the prosecutors and judge were on untested ground. “I have never seen that sort of situation before, but I have only been practicing for 30 years.” He said, “It is beyond the cutting edge of jurisprudence and legal maneuvering.”
  A professor, who teaches legal ethics at Northwestern University, said “what’s at issue here is the judge’s right to medical privacy versus the defendant’s right to a fair proceeding.” Professor Lubet added that, “what you want is a judge who can dispassionately weigh those issues. Judge Polozola is not that judge.”
  The Advocate, which carried water for the federal judges in Baton Rouge during the 40 year school desegregation cases and the two-year Edwards trial, also called for Polozola to recuse himself.
  In calling for Polozola to step down, the Advocate couldn’t resist, once again, the opportunity to kick Edwards when he is down. They wrote: “Edwards’ lawyers are desperately trying to save a scoundrel by attacking a man of integrity”.
  This is obviously at variance with what the aforementioned experts had to say about integrity. It also begs the question: what kind of integrity does it take to aggressively and arrogantly try to take over one’s own case in what may be a cover up of one’s illicit deeds at worst or at best, the denial of one’s right to a fair and impartial trial?
   Amid the numerous reports of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct throughout the trial, including the violation of the sanctity of the jury box and others too numerous to mention, the Fourth Estate, great defender against abusive federal power, saw no evil, heard no evil, spoke no evil and wrote no evil.
   No individual or group of individuals, no corporation regardless of its size and not even a state can stand against the awesome power and unlimited resources of a federal government intent on destroying its targeted victim. Only the Fourth Estate (the major news media) can protect against an intrusive, abusive government.
   Edwards’ lawyers also want to know what kind of deal the prosecutors cut with Robert Guidry to get him to testify against Edwards and let him keep $100 million from the sale of his river boat. For $100 million, I think I would have told them anything they wanted to hear: maybe for only $50 million.
   My sense is that Polozola’s conduct begs other questions that go to the heart of the matter. Did former Governor Edwin Edwards and others get a fair trial or was there collusions and conspiracy to get them at all cost?

   Milo A. Nickel is the former President and COO of Louisiana State Newspapers.

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