Louisiana Attorney General (and candidate for Governor in 2023) Jeff Landry, who in his capacity as Attorney General representing Louisiana attorneys defending the Ronald Greene litigation, was characterized by Greene family attorney Lee Merritt as viewing him and other attorneys representing Greene as “quite a nuisance.”
Here’s the latest on the Ronald Greene criminal and civil matters as well as the latest filing on the Carl Cavalier matter:
Eboni K. Williams, host of the Grio YouTube channel, published the following video hours ago in which attorney Lee Merritt, upon whose initial civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the Greene family we based our original September 10, 2020 feature breaking the Ronald Greene matter, updated viewers on the latest developments entailing both the Ronald Greene criminal and civil litigation matters. Let’s take a look:
December 28, 2022 interview of attorney Lee Merritt by Eboni K. Williams.
The only thing we’re going to comment on regarding the video above is that the “Louisiana attorneys” who have “seen us (the Greene lawyers) as quite a nuisance” would be spearheaded by the following highest-level attorney in the State of Louisiana:
Speaking of Attorney General (and candidate for Louisiana Governor in 2023), Jeff Landry, here’s a look at Cavalier’s attorneys’ response to LSP’s Opposition Memorandum to the Reopening of the Cause Filed by Cavalier.
That response was filed into Federal Court today (December 28, 2022).
We’re about to reproduce the highlights, but we want to stress that Cavalier’s attorneys argue strongly what Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns argued (and published) at the outset of this whole episode upon seeing the utter fiasco that it has become.
What they are arguing, which Burns feels is totally consistent with everything Burns was taught in the two Business Law classes at LSU required for sitting for the CPA exam and based upon all of the questions on the CPA exam, which is 25 percent Business Law, which focus on all the elements of a binding contract, there simply was no “meeting of the minds” here.
Being blunt, Burns doesn’t see how ANY judge can remotely infer that there was a meeting of the minds given the chaotic manner in which this settlement agreement was forced upon Cavalier and the fact that he remained consistent that he did not agree to the terms of the settlement: #1) before the October 6, 2022 settlement conference, #2) during the settlement conference, and #3) after the settlement conference.
With that opinion on our part fully expressed, here’s highlights from the reply by Cavalier’s attorneys:
I. There Was No Meeting Of The Minds Between The Parties.
In Defendants’ Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion to Reopen the Cause and Rescind the Proposed Settlement (Rec. Doc. 59), in reciting the “facts” of the case, the Defendants wholly ignored the sworn declaration, in which Mr. Cavalier testified that he and his attorney at the time disagreed on the terms of the settlement. There is no court record of the settlement, but after the settlement conference, the counsel for the parties exchanged emails attempting to reduce the oral agreement to specific terms. Mr. Cavalier never agreed to a written agreement. When he was presented with writing of specific terms from the oral agreement, he would not sign the agreement, as he did not agree! His position that he never agreed was confirmed at the Hearing held on October 27, 2022, where Mr. Cavalier explained, “It wasn’t that I just changed my mind. My position was, was never accurately represented by, by my counsel.” As pointed out in the Opposition Memorandum, “for a settlement to exist, there must be ‘an offer, acceptance, consideration, essential terms, and a meeting of the minds among the parties.’” In the case at bar, there was no meeting of the minds of the parties. Further, for there to be an agreement, as referenced in the Opposition Memorandum, the parties must voluntarily agree. As discussed more fully below, Mr. Cavalier did not “voluntarily agree” to the settlement. The instant matter is just like Alexander, where there was a disagreement between a party and that party’s counsel. Similarly, in the case at bar, there was disagreement between Mr. Cavalier and his counsel. Thus, Mr. Cavalier refused to sign a written agreement because he believed there was no agreement.
It is clear that the Plaintiff, Mr. Cavalier, never accepted the settlement as proposed without a provision by which he would be reemployed by the Louisiana State Police, even though his former counsel wanted there to be an agreement. At best, as in Hensley, there is ambiguity as to whether there was an agreement.
He (Cavalier) did not want to even go to a settlement conference before his hearing with the Police commission. But his attorney at the time would not listen to him. She browbeat him into going to the settlement conference, with the understanding that the money figure was agreed to, contrary to Mr. Cavalier’s view that it was insufficient. His attorney said that at the settlement conference, they could argue for more money using the non-economic issues as bargaining chips. But this was never done. Mr. Cavalier was depending upon his attorney at the time to forcefully argue for him, but instead, she was focused on the money. In spite of her client’s plea to raise the reemployment issue, she kept repeating that $200,000.00 was a great settlement. Finally, Mr. Cavalier caved and agreed to an oral version of the settlement, even though he really never agreed either to the dollar figure or the non-economic issues. His counsel threatened to abandon him if he did not agree to the $200,000.00. Mr. Cavalier knew he could not proceed alone and needed her. He was over a barrel. Either (1) agree to the $200,000.00, (2) agree to go to a settlement conference before a civil service hearing, or (3) at the settlement conference, agree to settle. Mr. Cavalier was under duress to consent, and thus any agreement was invalid.
Based on the audio recordings we’ve already published between Cavalier and Craft, we find it almost impossible to argue against what Cavalier’s attorneys assert above.
Cavalier told us when this whole episode first blew up, “Mr. Burns, they are telling me they’re going to mail me this big package and that I need to sign it. If they do mail me a big package, I’m just going to take a marks-a-lot, write ‘return to sender’ on it, and send it right on back to them!” We joked with Cavalier in saying that he could invoke the following 1962 (long before Cavalier was born and even a year before Burns was born) great hit by “The King” himself:
The “King’s” 1962 Smash Success Hit: “Return to Sender.”
All we can say is that, if Judge John deGravelles rules against Attorney General Jeff Landry and LSP, then maybe a lesson can be learned about trying to conduct negotiations in a super-secret, high-pressure atmosphere. We doubt they’ll learn anything because, being blunt, their arrogance is too strong and they’re playing with “house money” (i.e. our taxpayer dollars).
We’re just glad that Landry and his cramdown approach has been rebuffed by Cavalier in a very convincing and well-documented (much to Craft’s chagrin we’re sure) fashion!
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Did Craft receive something of great value?
I agree. Very simple solution here.
A perspective here. Let’s say Carl violated all these policies, for arguments sake. They fired him for violating policies. Furthermore, policies on writing a book and doing an interview. He was fired.
Lt. Clary received no punishment whatsoever from the department. If colonel Davis felt the previous colonel did not do his due diligence or failed to punish clary for criminal law violations or policy violations, then he could have done so. His response was, they can’t prove it either way. Well, a grand jury did. All police need for an arrest is probable cause. The state police had probable cause Clary lied to investigators and instructed an investigation. This was from the mouth of the investigators. Remember, Clary was a supervisor. He was not fired.
York, received a 50 hour suspension and was back to work. Multiple policy violations and criminal violations. Davis could have had detectives arrest him for the criminal violations. He didn’t. York was not fired. He literally was given the equivalency of a letter of counseling for committing negligent homicide. But Carl was fired.
Captain John Peters was indicted and was complicit in the coverup. He was transferred from Captain of Troop F to Captain of Tess. Criminal and policy violations occurred. He was not fired. But Carl was fired.
Jacob Brown, was eventually fired but it took multiple incidents of battery and excessive force for him to be fired.
Sgt. Shawn Boyd. Committed payroll fraud. A criminal violation as well as a policy violation. Wasn’t arrested or fired. Just suspended. He did it again. He Was fired for committing payroll fraud this time but then was un-fired. Colonel Davis promotes him to a supervisory position. But Carl was fired.
Sheldon Perkins steals evidence out of an evidence locker. Criminal violations as well as policy violations. A Lieutenant at the time, just gets suspended. Then, later gets arreste for DWI, battery on an officer, resisting, etc. fired but then gets his job back as a sergeant. Retired at a later date. But Carl was fired.
Vegas trip troopers, Lt. Cannon and prostitution, old Captain of Troop F with the underage girl he brought on the gaming floor, old Troop D commander driving drunk and doctor shopping, A current Lt. in Troop C beating a suspect getting promoted to Lieutenant. But Carl was fired.
Current Captain of Troop C beating his wife and getting arrested when he was a sergeant. But Carl was fired.
Retired colonel Bob Brown gets caught and admits to using racial slurs. Gets caught instructing troopers to falsify criminal arrest reports. Makes it all the way to Lt. Colonel. Car gets fired.
Colonel Chavez was Captain of Internal Affairs at the time. He then suddenly gets transferred to Public Affairs. He was a Captain during the Ronald Greene incident and A cheating incident and then suddenly gets transferred to Public Affairs. Colonel Davis promotes this man to number 2.
All of these things were reported through the years. I saw these things occur as I made my way towards retirement. Most of these people were not fired for committing criminal and policy violations. The state police makes it promotions based on and promotes criminal behaviors because these types of troopers can be controlled and will do whatever they are told no matter if it’s legal or not.
I’ve been retired for about five years now but I heard they now are even hiring people with criminal histories and records far beyond what the public would even consider shenanigans. They go to great lengths to keep those records buried.
In all this though, Carl was fired for blowing the whistle when told to stop and wrote a book. But when troopers and supervisors are committing crimes they aren’t, what does that say about the organization as a whole. It can also be argued Carl would have never made it to this point of losing his job if the state wasn’t covering up this murder. Carl wouldn’t have had anything to say to anyone to later get fired for.