Jury rules in favor of St. John Parish officials in case involving environmental advocate
NEW ORLEANS — A jury reached a verdict Wednesday afternoon (Jan. 29) on a First Amendment case filed by environmental justice activist Joy Banner against St. John the Baptist Parish President Jaclyn Hotard, Parish Council President Michael Wright and the parish.
The nine jurors found three things to be true in their verdict: that Wright, Hotard and the parish did not restrict Banner's speech, that the three defendants did not engage in First Amendment retaliation and that they did not violate Louisiana's Open Meetings Law. As a result, Banner will not receive compensatory or punitive damages.
The jury took more than three hours to deliberate in the U.S. Eastern District of Louisiana courthouse in New Orleans where the trial took place. Hotard and Wright were not in the courtroom for the verdict.
Cam Owens, one of the jurors, said that the video of the 2023 council meeting that set this case off was the deciding factor for the jury.
He said that he felt the testimonies were a bit muddled and that the video helped to clarify what occurred. He also said that he felt Banner had the chance to speak at the meeting.
'We broke down her amount of time, and when she was stopping, when she was interrupted, and she had three minutes [to speak], and even though they were interrupting her, she did get out what she was trying to say,' he told reporters. 'I think at the end of the day, they did try to stop her, but she did actually say what she had to say.'
Owens said he thinks Banner was not fully able to say what she had to, but that it would still be inaccurate to say that her First Amendment rights were violated because she did get to talk.
In Nov. 2023, Banner attended a council meeting and attempted to make a public comment about the council's potential decision to hire an attorney for Hotard to represent her in an ethics investigation related to the now-canceled Greenfield grain terminal project. Hotard interrupted Banner at that meeting and told Wright to stop Banner's comment.
Wright read off a statute that implied that Banner could be fined or imprisoned for continuing to speak. After trying to speak several times, Banner eventually walked away from the podium.
Banner and her twin sister Jo Banner founded The Descendants Project, an organization dedicated to telling the history of and advocating for Black communities within the River Parishes. They opposed the Greenfield development because they believed it would have negative environmental effects on their Wallace community.
Both Banner sisters commented on the verdict outside of the courtroom, along with Joy's attorney William Most.
Joy Banner said that wished the outcome was different, but that the case shined a light on transparency issues within St. John. In this way, she said the case was a win.
St. John president's mother-in-law admits she would have benefited from land deal
'A win would have been nice, but it was honestly making the parish president [and] Michael Wright, our public officials have to answer for the decisions that they've made,' Joy said.
Joy said that she knows she made the right decision to go forward with the trial and said that this was an eye-opening process.
Text messages that surfaced as evidence in the case had revealed that Hotard had kept her mother-in-law, who stood to benefit from a rezoning measure tied to the Greenfield project, updated on the project, though Hotard had previously claimed no such communications existed.
'I think that President Hotard took a lot of effort to keep a lot of things hidden, and now it's out there,' Jo Banner said. 'It's a matter of public record.'
Joy also described an accusation by Hotard's attorney that she and her sister are trying to be social media influencers as 'inaccurate' and that social media helps amplify their activism.
Most said that there may be future legal repercussions with regard to Hotard. He said that this trial revealed that Hotard's husband had a financial stake in the land where Greenfield would have been.
'The parish president has not committed to recusing herself from decisions about that plan [about Greenfield], so there may be future legal repercussions,' Most said.
Verite News reached out to Hotard and Ike Spears, Hotard's attorney, for a comment on potential future legal repercussions resulting from what was revealed in the case, but they did not immediately respond.
Joy Banner said that she will 'absolutely' continue her advocacy at St. John meetings and that the problems with transparency among parish leadership have become a 'rallying cry.'
'We will continue to do the work,' Joy said. 'They see us fighting.'
This article first appeared on Verite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. .
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