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Indian American running for judgeship in Louisiana
An Indian American attorney running for judgeship in Louisiana has promised to create a family court in New Orleans if elected.
An Indian American attorney running for judgeship in Louisiana has promised to create a family court in New Orleans if elected.
Goa-born Bernadette D'Souza feels there is no permanent judicial structure to address cases of growing domestic violence in Louisiana, the southern state where Indian American Bobby Jindal stood for governorship last year and lost.
"I am running to create a family court in New Orleans because there isn't one right now," D'Souza said.
D'Souza, who was brought up in Mumbai and came to the U.S. in 1978, has been Managing Attorney with the Domestic Violence Unit of New Orleans Legal Assistance and seen things first-hand.
That's what determined her run. She is keen to create a family court if she wins her run for the Civil District Court of New Orleans.
"The way the court is set up, newly elected judges get domestic dockets and then rotate to the civil docket when another judge is elected. As a result you have a newly elected judge getting family cases and a lot of times they don't have a lot of experience in domestic cases," she told News
India-Times.
"I am making a commitment to stay on the domestic docket and then eventually work toward establishing a family court."
"All the judges in the past have not made the commitment that I am making. And I believe that none of my opponents would make that commitment," she emphasised in a telephone interview from her home in northern New Orleans.
But, interestingly, running for a judicial office means D'Souza cannot make a direct appeal for funds from supporters, under the judicial canon. She can lay out her issues and walk away leaving her campaign committee to raise the nearly $250,000 needed to run a successful campaign.
Campaign sources said they were nowhere near that dollar figure but that things were "happening." Qualifying closes Aug 6 and she has two opponents.
Her issue of the need for a family court appears to have resonated in judicial circles and among the public at large, she says.
Statistics given out by D'Souza's campaign platform show that in New Orleans domestic violence has gone up by more than 300 percent from 1998 to 2003.
The 2004 records for the first six months also show an increase.
D'Souza has served on several advisory and steering committees for prevention of domestic violence. The seat for the judgeship became open when the previous judge was forced to resign.
The elections for D'Souza's run for judgeship for Division "M" are scheduled for Sep 18, along with School Board and other local elections. If she ties with any of the other candidates, there will be a runoff on Nov 2. The election will be held throughout Orleans Parish, comprising about 475,000 residents, 65 percent of them African American.
D'Souza has promised to run an honest, issue-oriented, non-racial, above board campaign.
D'Souza began her run after resigning her Managing Attorney position on June 1, beginning with a "grass-roots" campaign with several of her friends.
A graduate of Bombay University, D'Souza got her Juris Doctor in 1992 from Tulane University and is a member of the Louisiana State Bar Association. She was a lecturer in law at Tulane Law School and has given several seminars on the subject of domestic violence.
