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Redrawn BR School Board maps may be delayed
LONGING FOR JUSTICE
Uncertainty stems from possibility of new St. George school district BY CHARLES LUSSIER | Staff writer
PHOTO By JESSICA TEZAK
Paulette Odom looks through old photos of her son, Keith Odom, in the kitchen where she and husband, Kenneth, raised him in Jonesborough, Tenn. Keith Odom, a truck driver, was working on his truck when he was killed in Baton Rouge in 2017. The suspected gunman has been in jail for the past eight years but has not yet gone to trial.
‘Drowning in murder cases’
Months after it received proposals from demographers to redraw its election maps, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board may further delay creating the redrawn maps to see whether voters create a new St. George school district. The upside of holding off for the board is to avoid the potential hassle and expense of drawing new maps twice in a short period of time. Opponents, however, argue that current election maps violate state and federal law and are overdue for replacing. The map uncertainty means potential candidates for School Board in fall 2026 remain in the dark about which district they would run in and who they might face at election time. Qualifying begins July 29, 2026. The new remapping proposals, both submitted in March, are the latest chapter in a long-running fight over how best to draw election boundaries for the second largest traditional school district in Louisiana, home to almost 40,000 students.
ä See MAPS, page 9A
Baton Rouge’s court has adopted improvements, but it still faces funding challenges
BY JILLIAN KRAMER | Staff writer Kenneth Odom did not live to see his son’s alleged killer brought to trial. He died six years after his son was fatally shot at a Baton Rouge truck stop. Had 49-year-old truck driver Keith Odom been killed almost anywhere else along his more than 700mile delivery route from Jonesborough, Tennessee, the alleged murderer’s case almost certainly would have resolved faster. Instead, it has stalled for eight years in the 19th Judicial District Court in Louisiana’s capital city, one of the most sluggish courts in the country at closing homicide cases, according to an analysis by The Advocate of 578 murder and manslaughter cases that have been active since 2018. The court takes an average of three years to close its homicide cases — slower than nearly every other court in Louisiana and many in high-homicide cities nationwide. Even before the pandemic, which strained courts nationwide, Baton Rouge’s homicide docket moved at a crawl. In 2018, the year after Odom’s death, the court averaged 1,180 days to resolve homicide cases — twice as long as courts in nearly 100 other U.S. cities at the time.
PROVIDED PHOTO
Keith Odom was confronted, robbed and then shot and killed at a Baton Rouge truck stop on Aug. 8, 2017.
By 2022, that number had climbed to 1,329 days. The delays postpone justice for victims’ families — sometimes so long they never see it at all. Defendants, legally presumed innocent, may spend years in jail awaiting trial. The wait has been particularly hard on Odom’s mother, Paulette Odom, 75, who now faces the weight of the stalled case alone. “How,” she asked, “can they justify taking so long?” In the last two years, the court’s pace has improved. By the end of 2024, the average time to close a homicide case
had dropped by 33% from its peak two years before. Still, Baton Rouge trails nearly every other major Louisiana jurisdiction. Only New Orleans is slower. The court has also recently implemented several recommendations from an efficiency study by the National Center for State Courts. Those changes include the creation of a commissioner’s court to relieve judges of bail-setting responsibilities, as well as plans for several specialty courts to streamline criminal cases, said Judicial Administrator Diana Gibbens. But a shortage of resources, mounting caseloads and ongoing dysfunction — including frequent judicial turnover — continue to slow the court. Statewide logjams compound the delays: defendants deemed mentally incompetent can wait months for a bed at the state’s only psychiatric hospital, and prosecutions often stall as DNA evidence lingers in crime lab backlogs. Local leaders warn that progress could unravel without urgent investment. “We’re drowning in murder cases,” said East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore, whose office faced a backlog of about 250 open homicide cases as of April.
ä See JUSTICE, page 4A
ä For more on this series, go to theadvocate.COM
WEATHER HIGH 94 LOW 76 PAGE 8B
Landry says LA DOGE can streamline government Led by governor’s ally, initiative stresses business-minded approach BY ALYSE PFEIL |Staff writer Gov. Jeff Landry says Louisiana government has a lot to learn from private business. “We’re trying to turn the aircraft carrier,” he said. “It’s about shifting the culture.” One of his strategies to do that is LA DOGE, an initiative that Landry began a decade ago as attorney general and revived late last year. He rebranded the program to echo President Donald Trump’s effort, originally led Landry by Elon Musk, to slash spending. Landry tapped Steve Orlando, a friend and close political ally who built a major business providing services to oil and gas companies, as
ä See LA DOGE, page 8A
Business ......................1E Deaths .........................4B Opinion ........................6B Classified ..................... 3F Living............................1D Nation-World................2A Commentary ................7B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
101ST yEAR, NO. 27
Please join us in welcoming ROSEMARY PREJEAN, MD D E R M ATO LO G Y
Dr. Rosemary Prejean, a native of Lake Charles, Louisiana, earned her Bachelor’s Degree from McNeese State University in 2017 and her Medical Degree from Louisiana State University Health and Science Center in Shreveport in 2021. Dr. Prejean completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge in 2022 and her residency in Dermatology at the LSU Health and Science Center in New Orleans in 2025. Dr. Prejean has joined The Baton Rouge Clinic’s Dermatology Department and is accepting new patients.
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To schedule an appointment, please call (225) 246-9240
THE BATON ROUGE CLINIC AT PERKINS 7373 PERKINS ROAD BATON ROUGE, LA, 70808 (225) 769-4044
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