Eboni Johnson Rose

Eboni Johnson Rose, a judge on Louisiana's 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge, was suspended by the Louisiana Supreme Court after a Judiciary Commission investigation found she twice converted jury acquittals into convictions by secretly meeting with jurors after the verdict had already been read into the record — and, separately, used a racial slur from the bench to accuse local prosecutors of racism.

In a February 2023 aggravated assault trial, a jury acquitted the defendant and Rose read the not-guilty verdict into the record, concluding the trial. She then met privately with the jurors, learned they had actually intended to convict on a lesser charge, called everyone back into the courtroom, and reversed the verdict herself. A second judge later declared a mistrial but declined to reinstate the acquittal; it took the Louisiana Supreme Court itself, more than a year later, to reinstate the original not-guilty verdict. The Judiciary Commission found Rose did the same thing in a separate case involving a woman accused of waving a firearm at her family during a flood — another jury acquittal quietly turned into a conviction on a lesser charge after Rose met with jurors outside the record.

In a third case cited by the Commission, Rose convicted a Baton Rouge police officer accused of assault of "misdemeanor malfeasance" — a charge that does not exist under Louisiana law — before later acquitting him.

In a fourth case, during an April 29, 2024 sidebar with prosecutors and public defenders over delays in a Black defendant's domestic violence case, Rose accused East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore's office of wanting to "stick every ni**er in jail," using the slur herself while accusing the DA's office of systematically targeting Black men.

The Louisiana Supreme Court interim-disqualified Rose from the bench in a 5-2 vote on August 6, 2024, on the Judiciary Commission's recommendation; one justice specifically cited "a substantial threat of serious harm to the public." It later emerged that Rose had accepted a $14,691 legislative stipend on July 31, 2024 — about a week before her suspension.

In April 2025, the Supreme Court accepted a consent agreement suspending Rose without pay for six months, with all but two months deferred, placed her on two years of probation, and ordered her to repay $11,196 in investigation costs. She returned to the bench in June 2025, but her fellow 19th Judicial District judges voted to strip her of her criminal caseload; she now hears only civil cases, and is seeking re-election in 2026.