Few federal Judges in the Louisiana Eastern District captivate the Slabbed Nation moreso than Judge Helen “Ginger” Berrigan. We’d discuss Judge Ginger internally back during our insurance litigation blogging days and Nowdy would always default to lawyers with ACLU pedigrees being “a different breed of cat”. Whatever it was we thought Judge Ginger was the pits handling insurance cases.
We’ve followed her since, including Fred Heebe being Judge Ginger’s docent on her tour of the River Birch Headquarters, which was raided by the FBI. And despite the fact Fred Heebe’s dad is still a very senior Federal Judge there at the Federal Courthouse in New Orleans Judge Ginger stood alone in refusing to recuse herself from matters involving Heebe’s son Fred Jr.
I’ve come to believe being a Federal Judge in New Orleans is a glamor job with the national news making potential and of late Judge Ginger has done that handling Jonathan Vilma’s defamation suit against NFL Commish Roger Goodell. Luckily for the Slabbed Nation our legal consultants are literally cream of the crop and when one of the gang that is very measured in commenting offline goes on a rant then we’ll compare and contrast Judge Ginger in Vilma v Goodell and USA v Fazzio / USA v Titus to get the insights of a keen legal mind:
These cases before Berrigan almost look identical in the handling of critical legal issues (you know, the ones that judges should handle):
http://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/2012/08/new_orleans_saints_linebacker_44.html
In Vilma’s case I think it is an accepted belief that she will not, and cannot, do anything on this issue to resolve the matter. Certainly there will be no trial on the merits. But her practice seems to be, lets give the party their day in court to air out their grievance, then sit on it indefinitely. She gave Vilma a “I really would like to rule in your favor, but…..” comment, then ….. did nothing, hoping it clears up on its own.
So along comes this Titus debacle: Continue reading “She’s an enigma wrapped in a riddle: Judge Ginger”