An environmental activist will get another shot at suing St. John the Baptist Parish leaders after an appeals court ordered a new trial on Friday.
Joy Banner sued the Parish after its leaders prevented her from speaking during a council meeting.
A federal appeals court panel on Friday ordered a new trial for Joy Banner, a local environmental activist who accused St. John the Baptist Parish leaders of violating her rights by shutting her down from making critical comments about a controversial grain terminal project.
A federal jury in January 2025 rejected Banner’s claim that Parish President Jaclyn Hotard and Council Chairman Michael Wright violated her free-speech rights and Louisiana’s open meetings laws in 2023 when they stopped her comments and threatened her with jail time.
But a panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said the jury verdict was negated by a parade of misconduct by attorney Ike Spears, who represented the parish at trial.
“The sheer volume of misconduct in which defendants engaged at every stage of trial casts a pall over the jury’s deliberations,” the panel of circuit Judges Stephen Higginson and Jerry Smith wrote.
Higginson was nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama, and Smith by former President Ronald Reagan.
They found that Spears ignored directives from District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown to stop crossing ethical lines and “potentially prejudiced the verdict on dozens of occasions.”
The case involved a November 2023 parish council meeting where Banner, who co-runs the advocacy organization The Descendants Project, attempted to speak.
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#TheLensNola🔍 Joy Banner of The Descendants Project brought the lawsuit after the Parish Council chairman threatened her with prosecution and imprisonment for speaking during the public comment period of a 2023 meeting. ✍️: @DelaneyDryfoos 📰: https://t.co/I68esEhH9v https://t.co/SK57C8tPgI
— The Lens (@TheLensNOLA) January 27, 2025
During a November 2023 Parish Council meeting, Banner tried to speak against an agenda item that would authorize taxpayer funds to hire a lawyer for Parish President Jaclyn Hotard in an ethics investigation.
Banner said, “We as taxpayers should not have to pay for her lawyer,” and “Our parish president is currently under investigation for a Board of Ethics charge. How is that not relevant?”
Hotard interjected and instructed the chairman to “stop this comment,” then said, “First of all, you’re in violation of state law right now.”
Earlier last month, Banner filed a complaint with the Louisiana Board of Ethics after Hotard signed an application to rezone land for the proposed grain terminal. The ethics complaint alleges Hotard’s mother-in-law, Darla Gaudet, stands to gain financially from land she owns within and adjacent to the tract that would be rezoned.
As soon as Banner mentioned the ethics investigation at the Nov. 28 meeting, Hotard interrupted her and Wright banged his gavel. They claimed her comments weren’t relevant to the agenda item.
“We as taxpayers should not have to pay for her lawyer,” Banner said, trying to speak over the interruptions. “Our parish president is currently under investigation for a Board of Ethics charge. How is that not relevant?”
Hotard claimed her name wasn’t included with the agenda item, suggesting that made it against the law for Banner to speak publicly about the ethics investigation. The parish president’s name was actually in bold typeface at the beginning of the agenda item, indicating it was placed there at her own request.
“First of all, you’re in violation of state law right now,” Hotard said to Banner, after telling the chairman to “stop this comment.”
Banner later testified, “When I heard the words imprisonment and misdemeanor, I thought, ‘That’s it, I’m going to jail, I’ve messed everything up, my business is going to be ruined, my name is going to be ruined.’ I was terrified and shocked.”
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