The Supreme Court of Louisiana at 200 This 1901 photograph of the Louisiana Supreme Court’s courtroom at the Cabildo, where the Court sat from 1853-1910, reveals the first known look at the Court’s portrait collection of justices, jurists and other distinguished members of bench and bar. When the Court moved to the 400 Royal Street location, the portraits followed, and are now displayed along the building’s hallways. Image courtesy of the Collections of the Louisiana State Museum. By Dr. Warren M. Billings ounded in 1813, the Supreme Court of Louisiana has fashioned and ornamented state law ever since. Its 200th anniversary bids revisiting how Fit hammered out a regime quite distinct from those in other states and yet very much a part of the federal system that is the American legal order. This essay is such a recollection. 462 April / May 2013 In its original guise, the Court barely tions of Louisiana’s legal system. Initially, sion, the Louisiana equivalent of resembled the one familiar to us. Conceived the Court designed rules for bar admissions, Marbury v. Madison, strengthened as part of an American-style judiciary, it got which qualified newcomers as well as law- the Court with an Anglo-American written into the Constitution of 1812 as a yers who practiced before Louisiana was a tincture, and it guaranteed that the political necessity that assured Louisiana’s state.6 Its subsequent regulations established blending of American, British, French, admission to the Union. None of its architects standards of legal education that lasted until Roman and Spanish law would continue. quite grasped its purposes or its possibili- the 1920s.7 Early on, the judges also nar- That Mathews and Martin wielded such ties. Some perceived it as a threat to their rowed their jurisdiction by deciding they sway says as much about their longevity as legal ways, which sprang from the laws of lacked constitutional warrants to receive their outlook. Younger colleagues — most Spain and France, whereas others saw it as cases from the defunct territorial Superior notably Alexander Porter, Henry Adams a likely device for melding those traditions Court or to hear Bullard, George with American law into a serviceable sys- criminal appeals.8 Strawbridge and tem for the new state. This lack of common Similar questions George Eustis — understanding resulted in the sparest of of jurisdiction held similar views, frameworks for the high court in the new touched the great- but their time on Constitution.1 Up to five judges composed er matter of mix- the high bench that court. As gubernatorial appointees, ing American and was far shorter they kept their seats for life but could be civilian legal pre- and therefore less impeached. Their jurisdiction extended to cepts into a steady, influential than it civil disputes that exceeded $300, and they reliable legal or- otherwise might rode circuit throughout two statewide ap- der. Mathews have been. pellate districts. and Martin, both Architectural Model of the Poor health The Judiciary Act of 1813 added flesh trained American Government House of the French dogged Mathews, to these bones, but only just. It set the size lawyers, likened Colony of Louisiana Martin went blind, of the bench at three judges, any two of civil and common Thompson & Foster, c. 1933 and both stubborn- whom made a quorum. It specified being law to comple- ly resisted efforts “learned in the law” as the sole criterion for mentary facets of The Government House of the French to improve the office and assigned the judges precedence the same legal Colony of Louisiana, home of the French Court’s efficiency. according to the dates of their commissions. gemstone instead Superior Council, was built in 1761 By the 1840s, a Finally, it invested the Court with rulemaking of rivals. For that at Toulouse and Decatur Streets in the combination of authority and power over the lower courts reason, they ac- French Quarter, about 200 feet from the a mountainous and the bar. So long as the judges did not knowledged civil- Mississippi River. After statehood, the backlog of unre- stray beyond these limits, they were free to ian tenets as the Government House was occupied by the solved appeals, 2 conduct themselves as they saw fit. pith of private law Louisiana Legislature and then became the pressure to take With little fanfare, the Court sat for the in Louisiana but Louisiana State Capitol until it burned in criminal appeals, first time on March 1, 1813, at Government looked to other 1828. This model was built by Thompson and a scandal 3 House in New Orleans. Two of its newly sources as well. and Foster in the Louisiana State Museum involving Judge minted judges, Dominick Augustin Hall Moreover, studio in 1933 and aids in preserving the Rice Garland con- and George Mathews, showed up. After a both prided an history of the French Superior Council, the tributed mightily public reading of their commissions from independent ju- first governing body of Louisiana. The first to a statewide out- Gov. William C.C. Claiborne and swear- diciary, so they sitting of the Louisiana Supreme Court was cry that spawned ing the oath of office, they adjourned. The resisted being ex- at Government House on March 1, 1813. the Constitution third judge, Pierre Augustin Bourguignon clusively bound of 1845 and a re- 4 5 Image courtesy of the Collections of the Louisiana Derbigny, joined them a week later. Hall, by by the Civil Code State Museum. formed Supreme virtue of being commissioned first, became of 1825. They Court. Gone was presiding judge. He resigned before the went so far as to the old one, re- year was out, whereupon Mathews became ignore post-1825 repealing statutes that placed by a chief justice and three associ- president and stayed until he died in 1836. invalidated all foreign law in force at the ate justices who served eight-year terms. Derbigny left in 1820 for an unsuccessful time of the Purchase, the Digest of 1808, These justices still rode circuit and retained bid for governor, by which time François- and every territorial or state act that had been supervisory powers, but their jurisdiction Xavier Martin had joined the Court. Martin revised by the Civil Code, which clouded extended to both civil and criminal appeals. remained for 31 years and took the center an already muddled situation. Martin finally George Eustis returned to the Court as its first seat after Mathews’s death. clarified the muddle in 1839 when, in the case chief justice. He oversaw the clearing of the The Court went about adjudicating a of Reynolds v. Swain,9 he asserted the Court’s caseload and instituted a thorough reorga- swelling volume of business that grew after right to say what was law in Louisiana, nization of procedures. The Constitution of 1813, and, as it did, it formed the founda- and who ultimately declared it. His deci- 1852 included no substantive jurisdictional Louisiana Bar Journal Vol. 60, No. 6 463 changes; however, it reduced unlim- galvanized a lengthy campaign to build the efforts at modernization met with his studied ited oral arguments to a total of four Court a permanent home that culminated in resistance, especially after he presided at the hours, it erected an elective judiciary, 1910 with the opening of the massive Beaux impeachment trial of Gov. Huey P. Long in it raised the number of justices from four Arts-style courthouse at 400 Royal Street in 1929. O’Niell devoutly loathed everything to five, and it lengthened their terms from the heart of the French Quarter.14 about the Kingfish, so he regarded modern- eight years to 10.10 Three years later, the Court celebrated its ization as little more than a lightly veiled Civil war and its aftermath wrought a centennial. Speakers — some brief, some attack upon him. He was not wholly wrong Supreme Court of a different sort. After New not — treated an enthusiastic audience to given that modernization’s most persistent Orleans fell to Union troops in April 1862, addresses that touched upon aspects of the advocate was fellow Justice John B. Fournet, Chief Justice Edwin T. Merrick decamped Court’s first 100 a ferocious Long for Opelousas and then to Shreveport, but years. In response, partisan who went the Confederate court did little business that Chief Justice to the Court after we know of. It lost its archives to federal Joseph A. Breaux his highly contro- soldiers who carted them off to Washington, exclaimed that, in versial election in D.C., where they remained in the custody of Louisiana, “two 1934.16 the War Department until the 1880s.11 The systems of law, Fournet made return of white home rule, the coming of civil and common, little headway so Jim Crow, and more structural modifications were blended.” As long as O’Niell characterized the Supreme Court of the post- a result, he contin- stayed, but he Reconstruction years. Constitutional revi- ued, “the labors of did persuade sions in 1864 and 1868 abolished slavery and the bench and bar The Cabildo, where the Court sat from 1853- the Legislature promised civil rights for black Louisianans. of that period are 1910. Provided by Russell Desmond, Arcadian in 1938 to fund Books & Prints. The Court, led by its first native-born Chief still felt. Although the hiring of law Justice John T. Ludeling, re-bounded its a century has clerks as a means jurisprudence accordingly. Not everyone passed, during all of speeding up greeted its alterations kindly, most certainly these years, these the production of not white attorneys who fiercely abominated united systems opinions, and that Ludeling’s rulings on “racial and public of laws, civil and was a first for the questions,” even though the Court’s opinions common, have Court.