Taxpayers are footing the $2,300-plus bill for a Baton Rouge judge to spend a week in Panama City, Panama, last month to attend a continuing legal education seminar with a schedule that included a Panama Canal cruise, golf tournament and karaoke night.
Public records obtained by Business Report indicate state District Judge Trudy White spent a week in Panama City during the period the seminar was scheduled. Receipts show the Judicial Expense Fund paid $1,509.74 for her to stay at The Westin Playa Bonita in Panama, nestled on a mile-long stretch of beach along the Pacific Ocean and surrounded by tropical rainforests. Her king-sized accommodations for two included a “heavenly bed and bath” and a rainforest view. Airfare on United Airlines ran another $705.40, and seven days of economy parking at the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, another $56. Transportation to and from the airport in Panama to the hotel was $42.
Although the records provided did not include an accounting of White’s registration fee for the CLE of Louisiana seminar, the event’s website indicates judicial rates ranged from $750 to $1,000, depending upon the time of registration.
The Judicial Expense Fund is derived from a mix of state and city-parish funds, as well as court fees, according to Judicial Administrator Ann McCrory.
Seminars were offered daily from 9 a.m. to lunchtime, exploring legal topics such as recusal, evidence, medical malpractice discovery, consumer class action, human trafficking, preparing a court record for appellate review, the BP settlement and Louisiana’s eminent domain laws. A session dubbed “Hail to the Chief” was an interview of Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette Johnson, and U.S. Fifth Circuit Court Judge Carl Stewart also presented a 45-minute session on the relationship between the Fifth Circuit and the Panama Canal. According to a schedule on the CLE of Louisiana website, evening activities included a Panama Canal cruise, a nighttime tour of Old Panama, a golf tournament, a cocktail party on the MiraFlores Lock, a Black and White Gala, and karaoke night.
In an email to Daily Report before the records were released, White notes that she asked for “full disclosure” from the court’s administrative office. As of press time, however, the judge had not responded to additional questions about the trip. White is noted for being the first black female elected to Baton Rouge City Court; in 2009, she moved to state court, where she handles criminal and civil matters. Her biography on the court website says she is referred to as “the People’s Judge” for her active involvement in the community.
A search of the Louisiana Supreme Court’s calendar of approved CLE seminars offered during the period of the Panama event indicates 16 of them were offered in south Louisiana, from New Orleans to Lafayette, including five in the Capital Region.
The trip first made headlines late last month in New Orleans after an investigation by WVUE-TV uncovered that longtime New Orleans traffic court Judge Ronald Sholes used $2,000 in public funds to pay for the excursion just two weeks before he planned to retire.
CLE of Louisiana was founded in 1994 by New Orleans attorneys Keith Doley and Ammon L. Miller Jr., who envisioned the concept while vacationing in Jamaica. Net proceeds from the seminars—held in different exotic locations like Belize, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands—fund scholarships for students attending Louisiana’s four law schools.
Daily Report filed similar public records requests with Baton Rouge City Court, the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney’s Office and the First Circuit Court of Appeals, but turned up no records of any other officials having requested public funds to attend the seminar. Says District Attorney Hillar Moore: “We just don’t have the funds to attend something like that.”
