Two candidates for the one open seat on the Louisiana Supreme Court were disqualified by the courts in the last few weeks. Elisa Knowles Collins filed a petition in the 19th Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge objecting to the candidacy of Judge Marcus Hunter and Leslie Chambers.
The trial court determined both Judge Hunter and Ms. Chambers were qualified candidates. On August 8, the appellate court affirmed the trial court’s decision regarding Judge Hunter’s candidacy and reversed the ruling as regards to Leslie Chambers’ candidacy. On August 20, the Louisiana Supreme Court determined that Judge Hunter was also ineligible as a candidate for Associate Justice.
Case Background
Under Louisiana Revised Statutes 18.463, a candidate must submit a signed certificate stating they complied with specific parameters, including that they had filed federal and state income tax returns for the previous five years.
Louisiana Revised Statues 18.492 outlines the circumstances in which someone can object to a candidacy, including falsely certifying that the candidate filed their last five years of state and federal tax returns.
Ms. Collins provided documentation that Judge Hunter and Leslie Chambers did not properly file all of the required five years of tax returns. She showed documentation from public record requests from the Louisiana Department of Revenue that Judge Hunter didn’t file a federal tax return in 2022 or state state returns for 2021, 2022 or 2023 and that Ms. Chambers didn’t file a state tax return for 2022.
Additionally, Ms. Collins argued that Ms. Chambers didn’t qualify under the domicile requirements as she hadn’t resided in District Two for at least a year.
The Appellate Court
The First District of the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal heard the appellate case.
They ruled that Ms. Chambers did not provide enough evidence that she had submitted her 2022 state tax return. She submitted her TurboTax document as evidence, but the court argued that didn’t “provide proof of transmission of her 2022 Louisiana state tax return to a third party.” The court cited Cranch v. Wicker, arguing that uncorroborated, “self-serving testimony does not meet the burden of proof.”
Since the court found merit with the objection to the tax return challenge, the domicile requirement challenge was considered moot.
The court did affirm the trial court’s decision as regarded Judge Hunter. Judge Hunter had contacted his CPA and tax preparer Rosie Harper prior to his candidacy being filed to submit his 2022 and 2023 tax returns. She filed the returns on July 16, the day before he filed his notice of candidacy. During the trial, Ms. Harper also testified that Judge Hunter’s 2021 tax return had been accepted in 2022.
The court determined that: “Although there was testimony that Judge Hunter’s [2022] taxes had been rejected and needed to be filed in an alternate manner, we find that the rejection does not amount to a failure to file. Once the CPA transmitted the returns electronically and communicated the same to Judge Hunter, he complied with the filing requirements…”
Two of the judges dissented with the ruling as regarded Judge Hunter’s candidacy and would’ve reversed the decision.
The Louisiana Supreme Court Decision
Ms. Collins filed an appeal with the Louisiana Supreme Court, which determined that Judge Hunter was disqualified as a candidate.
Judge Hunter did not submit copies of the actual returns as evidence. Instead, Ms. Harper submitted “screen shots from her own website referencing various file names, she never identified which, if any, of these documents were actually Judge Hunter’s completed returns. Without corroborating evidence of what was actually filed, merely showing that some documents may have been transmitted to the taxing authorities does not establish that tax returns for the relevant period were in fact transmitted.”
The Court directed the Secretary of State to remove Judge Hunter from the ballot or (if the ballots were already printed) any votes for Judge Hunter would be void and not counted.
Dissenting Opinions
Louisiana Supreme Court Associate Justice Jefferson Hughes submitted a dissenting opinion, stating that the “relevant inquiry is the state of mind of the candidates when the certification is made. The issue is not, in hindsight, whether taxes have been filed, mailed, transmitted, received, and/or rejected.”
He stated that there is a difference between a candidate who knowingly didn’t file their tax return and one who “who in good faith believes his taxes have been filed when he or she so certifies.”
He stated that “Without showing any error on the part of the trial court, this court merely substitutes its own judgment for that of the trial court, in contravention of established law.”
In the appellate court, Judge Roland L. Belsome wrote an opinion that concurred in part and dissented in part. He believed Ms. Chambers should have also been deemed qualified by that court. Regarding the tax income challenge, he stated, “With regard to the filing of income tax returns, both candidates believed, in good faith, that he or she had complied with La. R. S. 18:451 by filing income tax returns as required.”
He went on to state that Ms. Chambers submitted her tax income return via TurboTax in the same manner as she’d submitted her returns previously. He further argued that she submitted the coversheet generated by TurboTax which she believed to act as a “receipt for filing.” He saw no “logical distinction” between Ms. Chambers’ case and Judge Hunter’s case.
“To put a gloss on this statute that requires actual filing rather than good faith certification of filing is not true to the rules of statutory interpretation and defies the time-honored rule of law that strongly favors permitting candidacy rather than preventing it,” he concluded.
Sources:
Louisiana Supreme Court Opinion
Appellate Court Opinion
