Louisiana news briefs

State seeks to disqualify New Iberia judicial candidate
LAFAYETTE (AP) — Louisiana has filed a petition to disqualify the district judge candidacy of New Iberia-based lawyer Carolyn Deal, who according to the state Constitution is unqualified because she has not been a practicing lawyer for eight years.
Deal, according to the Louisiana Bar Association, was admitted to the bar Oct. 29, 2007.
Through 16th Judicial District Attorney Phil Haney, the state filed the petition because it “was unaware of the defendant’s lack of qualifications for the judgeship” until this month, which is why it missed the deadline to pursue. Under the Louisiana Election Code, challenges against a candidate’s qualifications must be made a week after qualifying ends. This year, qualifying closed Aug. 22.
Deal has until Oct. 24 to provide reasons why she should not be disqualified.

11 arrested in prostitution sting
BATON ROUGE (AP) — As part of ongoing efforts to combat human trafficking and prostitution, law enforcement authorities in East Baton Rouge Parish arrested 11 people within the past week on either prostitution or soliciting prostitution allegations.
The investigation was spearheaded by the Louisiana State Police Special Victims Unit, which includes members of the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office. The unit was created to combat child exploitation and investigate child and adult sex trafficking as well as labor trafficking and prostitution across Louisiana.
Representatives of several other state and federal agencies also participated in the investigation.
State police Lt. J.B. Slaton said none of the people located or arrested appeared to be connected to human trafficking.

Affordable housing complex taking shape in Houma
HOUMA (AP) — A New Orleans human service charity group says it hopes the Bayou Cane affordable housing apartments will be the first of many projects it will be involved with in the Houma area.
A ground-breaking ceremony was held Wednesday for the 82-apartment complex. The mixed-income community is designed to be affordable to those earning up to 80 percent of the median income in the area.
Volunteers of America Greater New Orleans, which serves 16 parishes including Terrebonne and Lafourche, says 50 of the apartments will be rented to one-person households earning $32,720 a year or less and two-person households with $37,360 or less in annual income. The other apartments won’t have income restrictions, but rents will be below market rates.

Maness to voters: Choose
my next ad in Senate race
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Republican Senate candidate Rob Maness has launched an online contest to let people choose which ad will be his next TV commercial to air.
Voters can pick from three 30-second spots offered by Maness, a retired Air Force colonel and tea party favorite running against Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu and her chief GOP challenger, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy.
Maness lags in fundraising and has done little TV advertising in the race.
The first ad features a couple complaining about attack ads in the race and saying they’ll vote for “the other guy.” Another spot describes Louisiana’s resilience through disasters. The third has the most direct appearance from Maness, criticizing the policies of President Barack Obama.
The ad that receives the most votes will start airing in Louisiana next week.

Judges dismiss complaint
on alleged bias remarks
WASHINGTON (AP) — A council of federal judges has dismissed a misconduct complaint against a conservative appellate judge who was alleged to have made racially discriminatory remarks at a lecture on the death penalty.
Judge Edith Jones of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allegedly said at a speech in February 2013 at the University of Pennsylvania law school that certain racial groups like African-Americans and Hispanics are predisposed to crime, and are prone to commit acts of violence and to be involved in more violent and heinous crimes than people of other ethnicities.
Thirteen individuals and public interest groups filed a judicial misconduct complaint against Jones, and Chief Justice John Roberts assigned the case to the appeals court in Washington at the request of the chief appeals judge in New Orleans. The dismissal, which took place in August, was publicly disclosed Wednesday.
In a lengthy inquiry, a three-judge panel of the judicial council was unable to find any recording of Jones’ remarks, forcing them to rely on varying recollections of audience members about precisely what Jones said.
“It appears likely that Judge Jones did suggest that, statistically, African-Americans and/or Hispanics are ‘disproportionately’ involved in certain crimes and ‘disproportionately’ present in federal prisons,” said the panel.
“But we must consider Judge Jones’ comments in the context of her express clarifications during the question-and-answer period that she did not mean that certain groups are ‘prone to commit’ such crimes,” the panel of judges said.
“In that context, whether or not her statistical statements are accurate, or accurate only with caveats, they do not by themselves indicate racial bias or an inability to be impartial,” said the panel. “They resemble other albeit substantially more qualified, statements prominent in contemporary debate regarding the fairness of the justice system.”

Tentative trial date set in stripper dismemberment case
KENNER (AP) — Both suspects in the 2012 stabbing death and dismemberment of a Bourbon Street strip club dancer are now in Louisiana.
Terry Speaks, 41, arrived at the New Orleans airport Wednesday morning. He said nothing as he was ushered to a police car surrounded by police and media. He had been extradited from New York after completing a federal sentence following his 2012 guilty plea for failing to register as a sex offender in North Carolina — a charge unrelated to Jaren Lockhart’s death.
Earlier, Margaret Sanchez, 30, who was arrested in a New Orleans suburb in May, sat in a Jefferson Parish courtroom for a brief hearing in the case.
Both were indicted in August on charges of second-degree murder, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. At Wednesday’s hearing in Gretna, state District Judge Steve Grefer set a tentative Jan. 12 trial date. However, Assistant Jefferson Parish District Attorney Doug Freese said the two will be tried separately. He did not say who will be tried first.
Authorities in Hancock County, Mississippi, working with authorities from that state and in Louisiana, began investigating after Lockhart’s torso floated ashore in Bay St. Louis. Other parts of her body drifted onto beaches within 10 miles east in the next few days.
A stab wound to the heart killed her, according to the arrest report.
Police have said surveillance camera footage showed both Speaks and Sanchez leaving with Lockhart on June 6, 2012, from Temptations, the strip club where Lockhart worked. In April, Hancock authorities announced that Kenner police would take the lead in the investigation.