By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – When St. Tammany Parish elected the first new district attorney in over 30 years with a December, 2014 victory for Warren Montgomery, the warm and fuzzy feelings between that department and parish officials were overflowing.
A year-and-a-half later there are few smiling faces between the two entities after Montgomery filed a lawsuit against the Parish Council and Parish President Pat Brister seeking declaratory judgment over a long-running feud about who should handle the parish legal affairs.
Parish Council members and Brister are all reacting strongly to the lawsuit and suggest Montgomery is reaching far too much for the legal powers in the parish.
Montgomery, on the other hand, believes he had no choice but to file the lawsuit due to state law that said he could be charged with malfeasance and gross misconduct in office for not pursuing the work he believes is the legal responsibility for the District Attorney’s Office.
It was shortly after Montgomery took office that the dispute came to light after the Parish Council had essentially created its own legal department that was utilized for over 30 years during the time former D.A. Walter Reed was in office.
When Reed was ousted in 2014 for criminal charges that are currently playing out in federal court, Montgomery was the new face elected to the job and entered office to high praise from most corners—both publicly and politically.
That all began to turn sour early in 2015 when Montgomery made it clear he believes his department is legally obligated to handle all the parish legal proceedings, including legal work for “all boards and commissions.”
Montgomery cites the first paragraph of Section 4:03 in the Home Rule Charter that states: “The district attorney of the judicial district serving St. Tammany Parish shall serve as legal advisor to the council, president and all departments, offices and agencies and represent the Parish government in legal proceedings.”
Reaction from some of the public officials he targeted suggested Montgomery was “trying to become a 15th member of the Parish Council” or that “he might as well run the entire parish.”
Brister and other Parish Council members see it as an attempt to essentially take over every legal aspect of the parish, something they believe is far more than the law calls for. They point to the second paragraph in Section 4:03 in the Home Rule Charter that says: “No special legal counsel shall be retained by the Parish government except by written contract for a specific purpose.”
In Nov., 2015 the Parish Council asked the public to support a Charter change that would allow them to hire their own legal counsel, however, that measure was voted down, giving Montgomery more backing to his position.
With Montgomery and Parish Council representatives meeting for months, both sides said they thought a compromise was getting closer, but the D.A. ended the prospects of settling out of court when he filed his lawsuit two weeks ago.
Now both sides are expressing contempt for the matter heading into court, something even Montgomery had said he hoped to avoid.
“I don’t want to litigate this,” Montgomery said two months ago. “We can save time and money by resolving it in our meetings. Bad feelings result when you have something like this go to court.”
Those bad feelings have clearly surfaced now with council members refusing to discuss just what went wrong in the talks, although one stated privately, “something happened in the negotiations” to bring about Montgomery’s decision to go forward in court.
Under Reed’s rule as district attorney for the 30 years previous to Montgomery, Parish Council members routinely hired their own attorneys for different matters. Additionally, the Parish Council has hired several attorneys who they have designated “assistant district attorneys,” although Montgomery is not able to oversee what work they do.
As part of the lawsuit, Montgomery sent letters to Parish Council attorneys Bernard Smith, Terry Hand and Karlin Riles and told all three that “your status as an Assistant District Attorney with the District Attorney’s Office has changed.” The letter instructs them to “continue to report for work” and that Montgomery’s office would meet with them to discuss the new nature of their work responsibilities.
Montgomery also sent a letter to Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler instructing him to “cancel the Oaths of Office as Assistant District Attorneys” for Smith, Hand and Riles.
A second part of Montgomery’s lawsuit is seeking funding from the parish for doing the work for the Parish Council, another point of contention with the new D.A. who believes the parish is legally obligated to pay for the work he expects his office to take on for the parish.
The lawsuit seeks declaratory judgment, meaning a judge can immediately rule in favor of Montgomery in the dispute and avoid a long, drawn-out court case.
The matter is expected to be heard in the 22nd Judicial District Court in the coming weeks, unless the case is rescued by the local judge who is assigned to it.