Joy, left, and Jo Banner talk on Feb. 22, 2024, about their plans for the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House in LaPlace while standing inside the main building on the land, where the 1811 German Coast slave uprising began and jazz legend Edward “Kid” Ory was born. (Minh Ha/Verite News)
NEW ORLEANS — Trial began Monday in a First Amendment dispute that could have repercussions on free speech rights at local government meetings.
Joy Banner filed the lawsuit against St. John the Baptist Parish President Jaclyn Hotard, Parish Council President Michael P. Wright and the rest of the council. The Descendants Project, an organization twin sisters Joy and Jo Banner founded, frequently represents Black communities in the River Parishes and their residents against what they see as unchecked and harmful industrial expansion.
The case stems from a November 2023 council meeting where Banner tried to make a public comment on the council’s consideration of whether to hire an attorney to represent Hotard in an ethics investigation related to the now-defunct Greenfield grain terminal project. The Descendants Project opposed the development, which they said would have adverse effects on the Wallace community where their family has lived for centuries.
Video of that council meeting was played in court Monday. It showed that when Banner tried to comment about the hiring of an attorney, Hotard interrupted her.
“Stop this comment,” Hotard told Wright, who read a criminal statute out loud that prohibited the public disclosure of information from an ethics investigation. He told Banner a violation could be punished with a fine or imprisonment. After trying multiple times to continue her comment, Banner walked away from the podium.
In his opening argument, Ike Spears, the lead attorney for Wright and Hotard, said the Banner sisters do their advocacy work for media attention and to become social media influencers.
“Don’t encourage them,” Spears told the jury.
Chief Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown is presiding over the case in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Louisiana.
Ethics complaint triggers confrontation
The confrontation at the 2023 council meeting arose from a zoning dispute over the Greenfield project and an ethics complaint Joy Banner filed against Hotard the month before.
To build the grain terminal there, Hotard personally signed an application to rezone the area from residential use to heavy industrial. The Greenfield proposal featured a massive grain terminal, complete with 54 grain silos and a conveyor almost as tall as the 305-foot Statue of Liberty. The site is adjacent to residential property the Banner family has owned for generations.
Joy Banner filed the ethics complaint after learning Hotard’s mother-in-law owned part of the property that would be rezoned and could potentially financially benefit by selling it to the company. The state ethics board would later dismiss the complaint but was just starting to investigate the matter when Hotard requested the parish council approve hiring an attorney for her.
At the council meeting, Joy Banner brought handouts and a large map to show council members details of the zoning request and speak against the hiring of Hotard’s lawyer. Almost as soon as she began speaking, Hotard and Wright interrupted her. In addition to reading the criminal statute, Wright repeatedly banged his gavel and claimed Banner’s comments weren’t relevant to the agenda item.
A federal judge found the statute unconstitutional in 2014.
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‘My blood ran cold’
Joy Banner testified first at the trial Monday. She said the interruptions at the meeting and Wright’s implication that she could be arrested by speaking out struck fear into her.
“The word ‘imprisonment’ stood out in my mind,” she said. “My blood ran cold.”
Dave Lanser, one of Banner’s attorneys, asked her about her parents, who were at the November 2023 council meeting and in the courtroom Monday.
“The look of the elders,” Banner said through tears, her voice cracking. “To see them looking at me helpless [was] very hard.”
Spears claimed his clients acted within the law by interrupting Banner at the council meeting. Public officials were following proper procedures to rezone the land, he said, and Banner was breaking the law by bringing up the ethics complaint in a public setting.
His cross-examination of Banner was stymied with her attorneys’ objections. On multiple occasions, Judge Brown told Spears he was testifying when he should have been asking Banner questions.
Spears also played a video that showed other St. John residents who commented on the retention of a lawyer for Hotard’s ethics investigation to challenge Banner’s claim that her confrontation with Hotard and Wright dissuaded others from commenting on the matter.
The day concluded with testimony from Banner’s mother, who was questioned by Lasner about her experience at the council meeting.
The trial continues Tuesday with more testimony from Banner’s witnesses.
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