Mike Nerren

Michael Joe Nerren, known as Mike Nerren (born May 28, 1963),^[1] is the Division E judge of the 26th Judicial District Court based in Bossier and Webster parishes in northwestern Louisiana.

Background

Nerren is the son of Fenely Smith, a former district chief for the fire department in Bossier City, Louisiana, and Connee Smith, a retired employee of the Bossier Parish Sheriff's Department. He graduated in 1981 from Haughton High School in Haughton in south Bossier Parish.^[2] Nerren received his undergraduate degree in 1989 from Louisiana State University in Shreveport and his Juris Doctorate in 1994, at the age of thirty-one, from the Louisiana State University Law Center in Baton Rouge. He is a former president of the Bossier Bar Association and Bossier Dixie Baseball.^[3]

In 2007, Nerren became an assistant district attorney under DA Schuyler Marvin of Minden in Webster Parish. In that capacity, he served as the juvenile prosecutor and handled all cases of youthful offenders between the ages of ten and seventeen.^[2]

Nerren and his wife, the former Suzanne Ondine Hutto (born October 1968), a language arts teacher at Cope Middle School in Bossier City, have three children, Chance, Laurel, and Coleman Nerren. They reside in Bossier City.^[2]

Legal career

As assistant DA, Nerren in 2012 presented a check for nearly $9,000 to Police Chief Shane McWilliams of Bossier City for use in fighting narcotics. Taken over a three-month period, the funds represented 60 percent of the assets seized from suspects in twenty-seven separate cases.^[4]With twelve years experience in juvenile law, Nerren had already tried more than one thousand cases be was elected judge.^[5]

A Republican, Nerren won his judgeship in 2012 to succeed the retiring Bruce M. Bolin, a Democrat who held the position judgeship from its creation in 1991 until his retirement in 2012. Bolin also formerly served in the Louisiana House of Representatives.^[6] The court is based in Benton, the seat of government of Bossier Parish.

In that election, Nerren was opposed by two other Republicans, Whitley Robert "Whit" Graves (born October 1954) and John Bernard Slattery, Jr. (born July 1955), the city judge in Springhill in northern Webster Parish. No Democrat entered the competition. In previous years, no Republicans would likely have filed for the judgeship, but party fortunes began to reverse themselves in down-ballot races in Louisiana early in the 21st century.^[7] In the 2012 contest, Whit Graves cited his thirty-five years of experience as a state trooper, prosecutor, and private attorney. Nerren, with then eighteen years of legal experience, twelve as a prosecutor, noted that he had prevailed early in his career in a jury trial against Graves acting in the role of the prosecutor.^[8]

Nerren and Graves led the primary field on November 6, and Judge Slattery, who finished in third place, was eliminated from contention. Nerren then defeated Graves in the second round of balloting on December 8. The vote was 7,390 (53.5 percent) to 6,412 (46.5 percent).^[9]

After his 2012 election, a complaint was filed against Nerren by George Peyton Cole, Jr., a retired brigadier general in the United States Air Force, with the Louisiana Ethics Board in Baton Rouge. Cole cited Nerren's $2,000 donation to the Bossier City non-profit organization, United  Independents for Democracy, headed by Julian Darby. Prior to the election and on election day, UID distributed a flier urging voters to cast their ballots for Democratic presidential nominee Barack H. Obama as well as the Republican judicial candidate, Mike Nerren. In reply, Nerren said that he had sought African-American support in his campaign and "got involved with a group to canvass the black community. Somehow that turned into a ballot which I did not authorize and I had never seen until it showed up in three places.” The ballot was paid entirely by the Nerren campaign; therefore, Cole alleged that Nerren violated the state election code by providing an in-kind contribution to Obama without reporting the donation.^[10]

Nerren's court colleagues include Chief Judge Parker Self, Michael O. Craig, Charles Jacobs, and Jeff R. Thompson. Republicans Nerren, Self, Craig, and Cox were all unopposed in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on November 4, 2014. Jacobs ran without opposition to succeed his former legal colleague, John M. Robinson; Thompson, to succeed Ford E. Stinson, Jr.^[11]

Judicial cases

Even before Nerren was elected judge, defendant Russell Jones was charged in 2012 with distribution of narcotics. He first pleaded not guilty but then changed his pleas in exchange for a 15- year sentencing cap and the state’s willingness not to declare him an habitual offender. Judge Nerren sentenced Jones to fourteen years at hard labor. Jones filed a motion that Judge Nerren reduce the length of the sentence, which he viewed as excessive. However, the Louisiana Court of Appeal for the 2nd Circuit in Shreveport, stood behind Nerren's original decision.^[12]

In a case that attracted regional attention, Judge Nerren ruled in April 2014 that Robert Bond (born c. 1961) was competent to stand trial for the second degree murder of his estranged wife, Annie Bond (born c. 1967), a Bossier Parish educator. Her charred remains were uncovered on November 18, 2013, in a wooded area near Dorcheat Bayou in northern Webster Parish four days after she was reported missing. Police tracked Robert Bond to a highway rest area along Interstate 10 in southern Mississippi the day after Annie Bond's remains were found. Police said that Bond then shot himself with a .22 caliber handgun as officers approached.^[13]Bond subsequently pleaded guilty to manslaughter.^[14] The Bond case became an issue in the 2014 race for district attorney between the incumbent John Schuyler Marvin and his challenger, fellow Republican Whit Graves, who had been an unsuccessful candidate twice for a 26th Judicial District judgeship, including the 2012 race against Nerren. Graves claimed that DA Marvin erred by not charging the defendant Robert Bond with unlawful disposal of remains, unlawful cremation, and obstruction of justice. Graves questioned too whether the family of Annie Bond had been informed of the medical parole provision before they agreed to Robert Bond's plea bargain. That law permits Bond to return to Bossier Parish as if on probation because his conviction was for manslaughter, not murder in the second degree, and he sustained self-inflicted wounds when law enforcement officers apprehended him in Mississippi.^[15]

In another 2014 case, Judge Nerren ordered 23-year-old Christopher Wayne Holder to stand trial for murder in the second degree of his mother, Donna Marie Green Holder (1953-2011), an anesthesiologist^[16]at LSU Health Sciences Center Shreveport, who was stabbed to death in their north Bossier City home. Holder first told authorities that an unknown attacker had killed his mother. The statement he gave to police was declared admissible in court though Holder's attorney, Rick Fayard, unsuccessfully sought to have the statement suppressed and the waiving of a trial by jury, with the judge determing guilt. Holder pleaded "not guilty" and "not guilty by reason of insanity."^[17] The trial proceeded, the jury voted 10-2 to convict, and Judge Nerren sentenced Holder to life in prison without the benefit of probation or parole. The fact that Holder had bipolar disorder did not constitute the legal definition of insanity, explained District Attorney John Schuyler Marvin, who personally prosecuted the case.^[18]

References