Judge suspended without pay for saying the N-word in her own house

A judge has been suspended without pay for using the N-word in a racially offensive statement, which occurred inside her own home with her family.

A video that was taken with a mobile phone has emerged. The entire length of the video only shows a television screen that is playing a security surveillance video, but various voices can be heard in the background. The television was apparently inside the judge's house, and apparently various members of the family were watching the video, while saying comments and joking at what they were watching.

An African American suspect had attempted to burglarize a car that had been in the judge's driveway. An unnamed person saw the suspect leaving the car. The suspect attempted to flee but was immediately caught and penned down by several other people until the police arrived.
This is what the security video was of what they were watching on the television screen.

The voices seem to making fun of and saying derogatory things about the suspect in the video who broke into their car and tried to steal from them.

At one point in the video a deep male voice can heard saying "And mom's yelling 'N(*)(*)(*)(*)r, N(*)(*)(*)(*)r !'" (Presumably he is describing the events that happened in the video, but he might be doing so jokingly, because that same voice jokingly lies about something else in the video later)

In response to this, a middle aged female voice that could possibly be Judge Odinet responds "Hello, kid, we have a n(*)(*)(*)(*)r, it's a n(*)(*)(*)(*)r..."
Her voice gets very soft and hushed as she is saying the last word, probably realizing it is not something she is supposed to be saying, and she starts cackling into laughter.
"...like a roach..."

It sounds like she was just saying something funny that she knew people are not supposed to say (that is what makes it funny) is response to the joke from the first voice.
But then it looks like she took it too far with that last part of her joke.

An earlier voice said "Mom goes 'Why are the lights of your car...'" (which was quickly interrupted by another person). Due to the use of the word "mom", that voice is presumed to be the son of Judge Odinet.

It is not known who took the video with their mobile phone, but presumably it was one of the people in that room watching the television screen to go over what had happened in the security video with the family.

full transcript of the video:
male voice #1: "Oh... ****!"
female voice: "Oh holy ****, I've got to watch"
male voice #1: "Mom goes 'Why are the lights of your car...'"
deep male voice #2: "When I pull up in the web they be saying '*******n'"
female voice: "I said why are your lights on? They're like 'Pull up, pull up!'"
deep male voice #2: "And mom's yelling 'N(*)(*)(*)(*)r, N(*)(*)(*)(*)r !'"
female voice: "Hello, kid, we have a n(*)(*)(*)(*)r, it's a n(*)(*)(*)(*)r..." (she crackles into laughter as she finishes that last word in a hushed voice, then quickly continues) "...like a roach..."
deep male voice #2: "Oh, that's me!" ... "I came from the back side"
(laughter from all three of them as they continue to watch the video)
female voice: "He tripped!"
possibly younger female voice: "Twice"
female voice: "He tripped twice..." (laughter)
male voice #1: "I was the only one running around..."
deep male voice #2: "That's me..." "Kenny was standing... I'm the one that took him down, Kenny's just standing there"
male voice #1: "Ha ha ha" (sarcastically)
younger female voice: "He lies..." (laughing) "Dad lost his wallet!"
unknown male voice: "Yeah..."
deep male voice: "That's my Felware fell out"
younger female voice: "Look mom!"
unknown female voice: "The dude had a phone on him. You should have taken the phone and stolen from him, that f(*)(*)(*)ing a(*)(*)hole"
male voice #1: "And now I'm gonna grab a gun" (referring to what happened on the vide)
younger female voice: (the start of her voice cut off by the previous voice) "...go and get the gun"
male voice: "It's important, very important..."
possibly different male voice: "...as we maintain control over the situation..."
female voice: "The good thing is we've got video, we've got... Look there with the car... Wait, look there's a puppy... There's Rabble. 'Want to play fetch?'
young female voice: "Rabble is... (words not clear, last word sounds like 'bark')"

So a judge makes an offensive joke in her own home, in a response to a thief that had broken into a car in the driveway of her home, and as a result she has been suspended from her job without pay and might even be fired.

And it is not even known for certain that the female voice who said that in the recording is Judge Odinet.
But apparently they are saying that she is responsible for things like that being said in her own house.

The home is in Bendel Gardens in Lafayette.
Odinet has two sets of twin children.

Allegedly, the judge responded to a reporter by text message saying:
"My children and I were the victim of an armed burglary at our home. The police were called and the assailant was arrested. The incident shook me to my core and my mental state was fragile. I was a wreck and am still unable to sleep. I was given a sedative at the time of the video. I have zero recollection of the video and the disturbing language used during it. Anyone who knows me and my husband, knows this is contrary to the way we live our lives. I am deeply sorry and ask for your forgiveness and understanding as my family and I deal with the emotional aftermath of this armed burglary."

So she seems to have made the claim that attempted burglary left her feeling on edge so she took some sort of sedative medication, which might have affected her personal judgement at the time when she when she was watching that video and those comments were made.

Racist remarks captured in video of Lafayette judge's family cheering footage of foiled burglary - The Current (thecurrentla.com) - December 13, 2021
Louisiana judge to take unpaid leave after home video captures racial slurs (nbcnews.com) - December 15, 2021

 

She might have said it in 'her own house' but it's too bad it was recorded and obviously the recording was played somewhere else.

 

Its too bad that her statement to the reporter is pure garbage...as is evidenced by the recording. She wasn't traumatized - she was cackling. We'd all be better off if people just owned up to what they've said. They can apologize for it, but making false excuses doesn't help their cause.

 

"So a judge makes an offensive joke in her own home, in a response to a thief that had broken into a car in the driveway of her home, and as a result she has been suspended from her job without pay and might even be fired."

if the judge had been black, would she be fired for doing the exact same thing when she was a victim of a crime?

we need to make sure we are treating everyone equally

 

If you aren’t going to be able to make fair and reasonable judgements, then don’t be a judge.

 

This throws into question her ability to actually judge fairly, regardless of race or ethnicity, so probably the firing was justified.

 

I don't really think that is true. The family was making fun of and saying mean things about the person who had tried attempted to steal from them, who had broken into a car in front of the driveway of their own home and tried to run off with things taken from the car.
A man calling a woman a b(*)(*)(*) who does something bad to you is not the same thing as saying or thinking bad things about all women.
A wife calling another woman who she caught sleeping with her husband a "whore" does not mean she is disrespecting women who are in the sex industry.
Likewise, I think that someone calling a black person the N-word who did something bad to them is not necessarily being racist to all black people. Although this can be a tricky area to navigate.
Her saying, "like a cockroach" obviously had some racist tone to it, but it was also a little bit of a play on words, because criminal thieves running rampant and amok could also be seen as being like cockroaches, if they had been the victims of thefts before or other people in the neighborhood had been. Of course cockroaches are often dark in color, so in conjunction with the N-word it likely seems to be injecting some racial reference.

I actually think this woman could be totally forgiven if she had stopped at the N-word and didn't add "like a cockroach". She was only parroting what one of her older sons was joking about, who was lying about what had happened in the events in the video, in humor. That son, by the way, I think was probably one of those white young men who are trying to act black (very common), if you listen to the way he was talking. Listening to his voice someone might almost mistake him for an African American. I think his joke was probably more out of humor than any racial animosity.

What she claimed could be possible. Being traumatized in the very first place would have been the reason she may have taken a sedative earlier. Some of these relaxant and anti-anxiety medications can almost cause a person to act like they are drunk, it is very possible she wasn't being herself at that moment, let something slip out of her mouth that she normally wouldn't, an attempted joke in very poor taste.
I think if you really examine the context of the situation in which she said this, we can see that it was not as bad and was at least somewhat understandable.

I really question if people should be critiqued and have their job (especially government job) put in jeopardy based on the private things they say inside their own house, in the presence of their own family.
That seems to be entering into the territory of totalitarianism and a climate of paranoia, somewhat reminiscent of the purges in Soviet Russian society.

 

I had the opposite reaction. If there is a racial connotation behind the word "cockroach" I'm unaware of it. I wouldn't have fired her for that. But there are a few public trust positions, like being a judge or a police officer, in which the perception to deal with people fairly regardless of race, religion, ect.. is crucial. Once something like this gets out, it destroys the judges perceived ability to judge cases in which there is a black defendant. In fact it seems like that would create an automatic appeal.

In other words, she can no longer do her job as a judge.

 

This particular black person stole from in front of her house and then tried to run away.

Everyone was laughing and getting riled up in front of the TV. Her teenage son - who seems to be sort of a want-to-be-black "gangster thug" - was joking by making the absurd (obviously dubious and very probably false) claim that his mom had called the intruder in the car a n(*)(*)(*)(*)(*). The mom just carried on with that joke.

Because she used the N-word in her own home about a criminal who had tried to steal from them, and was obviously trying to say it in a humorous sort of way?

 

They don't even exactly have real "proof" that it is was her saying it in the recording.
We just assume that it is, due to the context of the conversation, the incident being shown in the video, and the fact that a police report was filed about an incident like that happening in front of the judge's house.
No faces are shown of the people talking in that video. There are only some references to "Mom", some references to "Dad" and someone named "Kenny" at one point, and a dog who seems to be named "Rabble".

 

Yes. It doesn't matter if it's in her home or not.

 

The point was it wasn't in public and it wasn't in her workplace or related to her job.

It's ridiculous that saying one word, in what should be the privacy of her own home and family, could get her fired from a job (a government job, and one that was unelected).

 

For most other jobs, I would agree with you, however being a judge isn't like most other jobs and their ability to do their job is based on the idea that they are fair minded and are not going to pre-judge the defendant.

 

I disagree with you. Given the details of the situation, I don't think her use of the N-word really strongly indicates much prejudice.

I think people might not fully understand the context of the situation and conversation in which she said it.

 

When the person's job is to judge others, I think it is appropriate that her attitudes and comments made in private be scrutinized to determine her fit for the role. Presumably, what someone says in the privacy of their home represents who they really are. Her comments revealed that she may not be unbiased when judging a person.

As for giving her the benefit of the doubt, I commend you. And I hope you would do the same for anyone.

 

Judge Odinet should be stripped of her license to practice law. No judge job. No law practice.

 

Because she joked about the N-word in the privacy of her own house, in front of her own family, and in the context of talking about a thief who had been trying to steal from them right outside their driveway, also saying all sorts of additional bad things about that thief that had no racial connections.

The joke involving the N-word wasn't even started by her, it was started by her son, who judging by his accent seems to one of those want-to-be-black persons.
She was just responding to it and carrying on the joke.

How about we fire judges for the official decisions they make, rather than what they say.

 

Oh good, all the leftist judges in D.C. will quit now - no? Hmm double standards. . .

 

Someone robs you - you get punished.

 

What is desperation?

 

Silly, nonsensical question.

 

Oh I'm sorry I thought we were playing jeopardy. The clue was a silly post with little to nothing to actually do with what the thread is about. Disagreeing with court rulings isn't the same as criticizing professionalism of a particular judge.

 

Yep, the judges in D.C. have shown a greater lack of professionalism than this particular judge.

I said nothing about court rulings.

Maybe you should take the time to read what people write before responding.

 

Whatever you need to say to fall asleep at night.

 

Well, since it's obvious you have nothing useful to say,