In other words, he skipped bail

You have to admit it has a certain elegance to it. 

The Louisiana Supreme Court set up new rules this year to quell public criticism over its secretive system for disciplining judges accused of misconduct.

But the first judge to face public charges under those attempts at transparency, Orleans Parish Magistrate Judge Harry Cantrell, is about to run out the clock. He'll be leaving the bench and a stack of ethical complaints behind him -- with no public disciplinary hearing, much less a blot on his judicial record.

Judge Cantrell will leave the bench without having faced any consequences for his overly harsh, obnoxiously so, in fact, treatment of defendants and their lawyers who had the nerve to object to his bail policies even though a federal court found them to be unconstitutional. 

Among other things, Cantrell was accused of “willful misconduct” and “persistent and public conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office into disrepute.”

From the bench, he launched or threatened contempt-of-court proceedings against defense attorneys who requested bond for their clients in amounts below a $2,500 floor that he’d adopted. That sparked a federal civil rights lawsuit that forced an overhaul of the court’s funding scheme.

And yet now it is Judge Cantrell who is skipping out on bail.  And that many not even be the biggest irony here.  For that we need to look at the reason the judge was able to postpone his matter past the expiration of his term.

Cantrell requested, and received, an extension to this week, saying that COVID-19 concerns had slowed depositions and subpoena returns. A new hearing date was set over three days to begin Monday. Recently, it was recently “continued without date.”

In and of itself, that seems proper.  But consider the judge's lack of consideration for accused persons in his own courtroom and it seems less like justice. Makes one wonder what his daughter-in-law might say.

She has stoutly resisted more recent pressure from advocacy groups urging that police release nonviolent suspects from custody. “You’re worried about criminals catching coronavirus? Tell them to stop breaking the damn law,” snaps Cantrell, a streetwise woman known for her salty tongue.