Schuyler Marvin

John Schuyler Marvin (born August 29, 1962) is the district attorney of the 26th Judicial District of Louisiana, based in Bossier and Webster parishes in the northwestern corner of his state. His late father, Charles A. Marvin, was the Bossier-Webster DA from 1971 to 1975 and then a judge from 1975 to 1999 of the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal, based in Shreveport.^[1] Marvin resides in Minden, the seat of government of Webster Parish; his principal office is in Benton, the parish seat of Bossier Parish.

Background

Marvin is partly named for his paternal grandfather, Schuyler L. Marvin of Jonesville in Catahoula Parish in eastern Louisiana.^[2] He graduated in 1980 from the private Glenbrook High School in Minden.^[3] He subsequently obtained his undergraduate education from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and then procured his Juris Doctor from the historically black Southern University Law Center, also in Baton Rouge.^[4]

Marvin is a member of the Bossier Chamber of Commerce. Among his civic activities, Cason was a promoter of the former Ware Youth Center, a 34-bed rehabilitation unit for youthful offenders located in Coushatta in Red River Parish. The facility closed in 2013 because of state budget cuts.^[5] He is the board president of the Gingerbread House, a child advocacy center for Bossier and Caddo parishes located in Shreveport.^[4]

Legal career

Marvin is a director of the Louisiana District Attorney's Association and a member of the National District Attorney's Association. He is affiliated with the North Louisiana Criminalistics Laboratory Commission in Shreveport. He is a lecturer at the Justice of the Peace Training Conference sponsored by the Attorney General of Louisiana. He has instructed law enforcement officers at the North Louisiana Criminal Justice Academy in Plain Dealing in Bossier Parish.^[4]

Marvin has been a prosecutor for most of his legal career, having disposed of hundreds of felony and misdemeanor cases. He has secured multiple convictions for murder, rape, armed robbery, narcotics, domestic violence, child abuse, and drunk driving.^[4] In 2008, Marvin recognized in a public ceremony his second cousin Foster Campbell, a Democratic member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission and a former state senator and candidate for governor, for Campbell's legislation which permits the victims of domestic violence to obtain waivers in making utility deposits.^[6]

On November 5, 2002, Marvin was elected DA. He defeated the Republican candidate, Ander Michael "Mike" Boggs (born September 1963), 19,985 (51.4 percent) to 18,866 (48.6 percent).^[7] Marvin was unopposed for a second six-year term as DA in 2008.^[8]

In 2009, Marvin appointed Mike Nerren of Bossier City as the chief juvenile prosecutor for cases of youthful offenders between the ages of ten and seventeen.^[9] In 2012, Nerren was elected judge of Division E of the 26th Judicial District Court to succeed the retiring Bruce M. Bolin.^[10]

On March 10, 2011, Marvin appeared as himself on the cable television series Sins and Secrets in the episode "Shreveport", an examination of the murder by his estranged wife of Vol S. "Bubba" Dooley, III, the son of former Bossier Parish Sheriff Vol Dooley. Marvin's second cousin, Judge John Cecil Campbell, also appeared as himself in the episode.^[11]

In 2012, Marvin obtained an indictment from a grand jury of Glen Guin for embezzlement of more than $93,000 in public funds from the office of the Webster Parish coroner. Marvin found that Guin had allegedly funneled the money to finance his daughter's participation in horse shows.^[12]

In August 2012, Marvin appointed Douglas Matthew Stinson (born July 1982), a son of the retiring 26th Judicial District Judge Ford E. Stinson, Jr., to replace judicial candidate Mike Nerren as assistant DA for juvenile cases ranging from disorderly conduct to armed robbery.^[13]

Marvin is a past recipient of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil Rights Award for Law, based upon his career work to expand the rights of the victims of crime and to promote the public safety.^[4]

In the nonpartisan blanket primary, often called jungle primary, held on November 4, 2014, Marvin won his third term as DA by defeating Whitley Robert "Whit" Graves (born October 29, 1954), a Shreveport native and a Republican attorney from Benton who has run and lost three separate elections for judge, most recently for the 26th Judicial District Court in 2012 against Mike Nerren.^[14]Marvin polled 23,791 votes (52.9 percent) to Graves's 21,215 (47.1 percent). Marvin lost Bossier Parish, 53 to 47 percent, but his two-to-one margin in his own Webster Parish provided his victory margin.^[15]

Personal life

Marvin's mother, the former Rebecca Campbell (born September 1935) is from a politically-connected Minden Democratic family. Marvin's father, Judge Marvin, formerly practiced law with the firm Campbell, Campbell and Marvin, later Campbell, Campbell, Marvin, and Johnson. The first "Campbell" in the firm was John T. Campbell (1903-1993), Rebecca's father, Judge Marvin's father-in-law, and hence Schuyler Marvin's maternal grandfather, who was also a former clerk of the Louisiana State Senate.^[16] The second "Campbell", Cecil P. Campbell (1909-1996), was Schuyer Marvin's great uncle.^[1]Rebecca Marvin is a first cousin of Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, a Democrat who won a third term on the regulatory body in the same election in which Schuyler Marvin was reelected to his third term as district attorney.

Marvin and his wife, the former Jodi Lane Comeaux (born June 1965), formerly of Destrehan in St. Charles Parish, have three children, Sam, Kate, and Camille Marvin. The family is United Methodist.^[4]

References