The Louisiana Supreme Court has reversed a controversial decision made by a district court judge to toss the conviction of a rapist sent to jail in 1972.
The justices of the state’s highest court on Thursday reinstated Donald Ray Link’s conviction and admonished 19th District Court Judge Gail Horne Ray, WAFB reported. They also denied Link’s request to become eligible for parole, which is what he was in court for in April when Ray issued her surprise ruling. Link is serving a life sentence.
She made the ruling after Link’s attorneys complained about how long it was taking her to decide if he could be eligible for parole. The justices ordered her to make that ruling quickly or face contempt.
Ray came back with a claim that she had found “improper instructions” instructions given to the jury during the trial, which she called a “glaring error,” and threw out the conviction in favor of a new trial.
The justices said that Ray ignored the fact that the “error” she found would not have been an error in 1972 because rules were different at that time.
Associate Justice Scott J. Crichton concurred with the ruling in a separate writing that took extreme issue with the judge’s actions.
“I write separately to express my concern about a district court judge engaging in such a patent abuse of discretion in response to an order from this Court,” wrote Crichton. “In this case, the district court judge had delayed ruling on defendant’s motion to clarify sentence for an inordinate time despite repeated instructions to act. This Court’s remand order was clear. It simply directed the district court judge to rule in a timely manner or show cause why she should not be held in contempt. The district court judge’s ill-conceived response to the order was to issue a grossly erroneous ruling that had a retaliatory if not contemptuous tone and, incredibly, resulted in the fashioning of an illegal remedy that even defendant had not requested.”
Ray’s ruling drew an outcry from people who claimed she had a conflict of interest because her son, Nelson Dan Taylor Jr., was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the rapes of several classmates in the 1990s.
CrimeOnline’s Nancy Grace noted that Ray is the judge assigned to the case of four men charged in the rape of 19-year-old Louisiana State University student Madison Brooks, who was struck by a ride share driver and died after the four suspects put her out of their car. Brooks and the four men had been drinking — all but one of them illegally under the age of 21 — prior to the rape.
Ray previously released another accused rapist — De’Aundre Cox, accused of raping a 12-year-old — without notifying the victim or the district attorney’s office.
