Louisiana judge in abuse case belatedly recuses himself after ruling in favor of church on whose finance panel he sits | Louisiana

Only one judge in Louisiana ruled in favor of the Catholic church’s ongoing attempts to repeal a law that allows past abuse allegations to be heard in court; even after a state supreme court decision upheld the constitutionality of the so-called “lookback window.”

But now the judge, Kendrick J Guidry of Lake Charles, is forced to admit that his decision benefited a particular church on whose finance committee he sits, providing a direct financial benefit that warrants recusal under the state’s judicial code.

Guidry’s handling of the situation raised questions about why he didn’t give up sooner. And it was yet another of many examples in which openly Catholic judges in Louisiana, one of the religion’s strongholds in the United States, ruled in favor of a church or affiliated group and later agreed they should not have heard the case.

These controversial decisions come as dioceses across the state grapple with a decades-long, financially costly clergy abuse scandal.

Before being rejected, Guidry announced that he was a parishioner of the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in the diocese of Lake Charles. But he stopped short of mentioning that he had served on the church’s finance committee since February until he finally revealed it last week.

Diane Ciolino, a Loyola University New Orleans law professor who specializes in judicial ethics in Louisiana, said state law is clear that judges with such ties to a party in a case must recuse themselves from that case.

“Judges sincerely believe that sometimes they can be impartial, even if they have close ties to parties and lawyers,” Ciolino said. But the Louisiana legislature, which has revised laws governing judicial recusal in recent years, Ciolino continued, “has made clear that the standard is an objective standard.”

“This is not what the judge thought, but what an objective and reasonable observer would believe under the totality of the circumstances.”

Kathryn Robb of the abuse victims advocacy group Enough Abuse, a leading national advocate for retroactive window laws across the country, blasted Guidry for not disclosing his role on the church’s finance committee from the beginning.

“This relationship with the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Diocese of Lake Charles made it seem like they were distant cousins, when in fact when you look at all the facts, the relationship between the judge and the church is actually more like that of an identical twin,” Robb said.

‘Duty to be fair and impartial’

At the center of the controversy over Guidry’s recusal was the March 31 hearing in a case alleging that a priest at Immaculate Heart of Mary committed “serious child sexual abuse” on a five- to nine-year-old boy in the 1980s. Guidry announced at the beginning of the hearing that she was a member of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Still, he said it could be fair, and attorneys on both sides agreed that mere church membership was not disqualifying.

Guidry later agreed with the diocese’s view that allowing a 40-year-old abuse claim would be an unconstitutional “taking” of church property because the law in effect at the time of the alleged abuse set a long-expired filing deadline, according to the hearing transcript.

Louisiana’s highest court had already rejected that stance when it approved the review window in June 2024 despite arguments to the contrary by the diocese of Lafayette, about 75 miles east of Lake Charles. But Guidry found that the Louisiana supreme court’s decision in that case was based on a separate debate about due process rights and never conclusively resolved the question of whether institutions have a proprietary right not to be sued after the original deadline to sue for old misconduct allegations expires.

Robb said he was surprised by the apparent lack of objectivity in some of Guidry’s comments on the bench. At one point, he told church lawyers that the lookback window law allowed people to “take shots at you for something that might have happened 30 or 40 years ago.”

“This has nothing to do with filming,” Robb said. “This is about ensuring justice and accountability for victims who were raped, sexually assaulted and sodomized as children.”

Lawyers for the alleged victim in the Lake Charles case filed a motion to remove Guidry from office on April 15. They argued that the judge’s position as a Eucharistic priest and leader of a men’s group at Immaculate Heart of Mary and his background as a former finance committee member at another church in the same diocese went far beyond what he disclosed.

Guidry later explained that he was serving on the finance committee for Immaculate Heart of Mary when attorney Daniel Meyer, who represented an alleged abuse victim in a separate case before Guidry, made his own request for the judge to step aside.

In an email obtained by WWL Louisiana and the Guardian, Guidry was angered by Meyer’s request and said “it brings with it personal pain.” He maintained in March that he did not recuse himself because he believed his role as a communion minister and leader of a men’s group in the church did not compromise his impartiality. But then Guidry offered new information.

“Unfortunately, at the time, I did not mention that I was a finance committee member, as reflected in my updated bio,” Guidry wrote in an email on the Lake Charles county courthouse website. “Based on the motion to withdraw and the attached bio, I noticed that my updated bio was not uploaded to the website as it should have been when I updated it. [24 February]. “I accepted the appointment to the finance committee at that time, so this is still new to me and slipped my mind at the last hearing.”

A new version of Guidry’s biography was posted on the court’s website on April 15, according to the file’s metadata. The biography was nearly identical to the previous version, but added that Guidry served on the finance committee of Immaculate Heart of Mary.

“I allow nothing to interfere with my duties to be fair and impartial in all situations,” Guidry wrote in his email. He then cited Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Rule 151(B); This article requires judges to remove themselves from office if there is a “substantial and objective basis that could reasonably be expected to hinder pre-emption”. [them] To fail to conduct any aspect of the case in a fair and impartial manner”.

“Based solely on the fact that I am on the church’s finance committee and merely say the word ‘finance,’ I can understand how there might be a ‘substantial and objective’ basis requiring me to withdraw under 151(B),” Guidry wrote.

WWL and the Guardian obtained the judge’s email independently of Meyer. Meyer confirmed the authenticity of the email but declined to comment.

Guidry also had no immediate comment.

The case, which Guidry decided on the church’s side, was later assigned to another judge named Michael Canaday. In November, in another clergy abuse case involving the Lake Charles diocese’s St. Joseph church, Canaday ruled against claims that prevailed before Guidry.

Guidry’s pre-dismissal decision came after a pair of lawsuits alleging sexual harassment by staff at a Jesuit high school in New Orleans were still pending. In those cases, which unfolded in the New Orleans state civil courthouse, attorneys representing the Catholic school unsuccessfully asserted the same arguments that won before Guidry.

Those were among dozens of similar arguments in cases across Louisiana that made their way to the state’s high court. In each of them, including the decision issued Tuesday, the high court declined to hear the case.

A decision in the U.S. court of appeals for the fifth circuit likewise declined to hear a clergy abuse case in Baton Rouge that had issued the same arguments about the religious order of the Salesians.

However, despite the loss of track record, Guidry said on March 31 that he agreed with church lawyers that the repeated denials did not actually create a legal precedent that he had to follow.

Other rejections

Guidry’s subsequent denial echoed U.S. district judge Jay Zainey at the New Orleans federal courthouse.

Zainey was among several federal judges in the city who initially recused themselves from presiding over any case that could directly impact the 2020 filing for bankruptcy protection by the Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans, which is grappling with the financial fallout from clergy abuse allegations. His dismissal was due to his various ties to the archdiocese, including his past service on the board of the archdiocesan college that trains prospective clergy.

But then, in a malfeasance case involving the Catholic religious order of the Holy Cross, Zainey decided to repeal the review window that the Louisiana legislature approved in 2021 as unconstitutional.

Zainey’s decision was initially seen as a decisive victory for the Catholic church in the state, allowing the church to settle abuse allegations for much less money than it would have otherwise paid. But the Louisiana supreme court later upheld the constitutionality of the law and essentially invalidated Zainey’s decision.

He later withdrew from the Holy Cross case. In June 2025, a jury ordered Holy Cross officials to pay the plaintiff $2.4 million in damages.

The archdiocese of New Orleans and its insurers have since also agreed to pay nearly $305 million to settle with clergy abuse plaintiffs involved in the bankruptcy, unrelated to the Lake Charles cases before Guidry. Before the reexamination window opened, the archdiocese estimated it could settle the bankruptcy for $7 million or less.

Meanwhile, another New Orleans federal judge named Greg Guidry, no relation to Kendrick Guidry, insisted he could handle objections to the archdiocese’s bankruptcy impartially, even though he had donated tens of thousands of dollars to the institution. In one of his landmark decisions, he rejected a request to release secret church documents showing how archdiocese officials treated clergy suspected of sexually abusing children.

Then, in April 2023, Greg Guidry recanted his role in the church’s bankruptcy while his personal relationship with an attorney who represented archdiocese affiliates in insurance disputes came under scrutiny.

The Guardian and WWL Louisiana managed to report on retired priest Lawrence Hecker, one of the clergy in the sealed files of the archdiocesan bankruptcy office. In December 2024, Hecker pleaded guilty to charges of child rape and kidnapping and died in prison shortly after.

Louisiana state police officers pursuing Hecker also launched a broader investigation into whether the archdiocese ran a child sex trafficking ring responsible for “widespread … exploitation of minors going back decades” that was “covered up and not reported to authorities,” they said in an affidavit filed in criminal court.

It is not yet clear whether any of Hecker’s superiors will be charged as part of this investigation.