When Judges Reward Chaos: The Royale Colbert Effect

If you haven’t figured it out, a new era has begun in America. Unhinged protests and absurd antics are becoming so common that we almost stop noticing. But we all know why they keep happening: they’re rewarded with headlines and rarely punished with consequences. This cycle emboldens those who know they are losing their battles to become more aggressive.

A few examples come to mind:

• Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Disruption (November 2023): Protesters advocating for environmental and Palestinian causes glued their hands to the street to block the parade route in New York City. 

• Climate protesters blocked a Nevada road in 2023, disrupting Burning Man. They were eventually forcibly removed by tribal police.

• Statue Defacement in Long Island (March 2025): During an anti-Israel protest, a woman threw a blood-red liquid on a statue of former President Theodore Roosevelt outside the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola, causing significant damage.
• Claude Monet’s “The Artist’s Garden at Giverny” in Stockholm (June 2023): Two women threw paint at this painting and glued themselves to its frame at Sweden’s National Museum. Thankfully, the artwork was protected by glass and was unharmed.

This garbage is being encouraged locally, too.

This isn’t just national news headlines. What begins as absurdity on the national stage is quickly normalized when local judges endorse such antics from the bench.

On February 21, 2022, Matthew Humphrey, one of those attention-deprived, “look at me” types, repeatedly interrupted as others tried to speak during a Lafayette Parish Library Board of Control meeting. Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Deputies who witnessed Humphrey’s behavior eventually intervened and ordered Humphrey to leave the meeting. Of course, he refused and almost asked to be arrested while continuing his disruption. And so, he was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace by disrupting a lawful public assembly.

Thanks to the photos he took after the meeting, and social media posts bragging about it, we can assume Humphrey showed up intending to be arrested. With him, he carried a pacifier-type device that he altered to look like his mouth had been taped shut. He used the contrivance for publicity selfies, which he posted on social media that same evening.

This particular arrest was set for trial on Friday, February 14, 2025. However, the 15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office waited until court began to drop the charges. That did not come without some prompting, though. According to the trial transcript, before the trial started, Judge Royale Colbert informed Assistant District Attorney Chris Richard that he would be unable to obtain a guilty verdict.

A Royale Pain

Colbert stated:

“I don’t see where he disturbed the peace. I think at that open board meeting, he had a right to make a statement. It’s an open and public meeting. And so, I mean, you can try it if you want to try it, but I’m going to find him not guilty.”

Colbert then ordered Humphrey to face him and stated:

“I want to apologize for you having to go through this. Like I said, I read everything that you submitted. This is America. We don’t stifle people in America.So thank you for your bravery.”

A moment later, Colbert said,

“That disturbing the peace at the library, I mean, will the State move to dismiss, or do I?”

Ultimately, as anyone can see from the transcript, the District Attorney was compelled to dismiss the charges against Humphrey because Colbert made clear he had already decided the case’s outcome before the hearing began!

At the time of his arrest, Humphrey was also the subject of another charge for disturbing the peace. This one included fighting. The two charges were combined into this one hearing. However, according to the trial transcript, Colbert agreed to delay that hearing for another day.

Colbert is already in trouble.

Many people aren’t surprised by Colbert’s actions. Allegations of misconduct as a prosecutor have recently resurfaced. He was the Assistant District Attorney assigned to oversee the prosecution of Melvin Price for aggravated battery with a box cutter. Colbert filed a bill of information with the District Attorney’s Office in March 2015 charging Price with the crime.

When the matter came before the Court in July 2015, attorney Burton Guidry represented Price. The minutes reflect that the matter was “dismissed as requested by the victim.” An image of a check allegedly made out to the victim from Royale L. Colbert Attorney at Law, LLC and dated July 24, 2015 (one day after the case was dismissed) has been circulated recently. The memorandum on that $1,000 check reads, “received from Burton Guidry” (the defendant’s attorney). Kerry Price, the victim in this matter, was one of the individuals who recently staged a protest outside the Lafayette Parish Courthouse against Colbert.

Maybe Price should consider holding his protest inside Colbert’s courtroom next time, since Colbert seems to think such behavior is an inalienable right.

Royale Colbert is under an official Judicial Investigation.

Colbert is also the subject of a Judicial Commission investigation. In October 2024, the Commission alleged that Colbert violated seven canons of the Code of Judicial Conduct, including “engaging in willful misconduct.” That investigation stems from two separate incidents that have occurred since he was on the bench.

The first involves an incident from August 2021 involving former Lafayette Chief of Police Thomas Glover. Remember him? That was only four Chiefs ago. Glover attempted to shut down an event at a Lafayette nightclub under the authority of a City ordinance, citing a “clear and present danger”. Additionally, Glover indicated that he wanted to issue the order on Monday, but was allegedly instructed by former City-Parish Attorney Greg Logan to withhold doing so until Friday to deprive those impacted by the order an opportunity to obtain counsel and have due process.

Saturday Court?

Colbert then did something unusual, but what most of us would appreciate if we were in the shoes of the litigants. He held a court session on a Saturday to hear the matter. The only problem is that the Clerk of Court’s Office was closed. That means the case couldn’t be randomly allotted, and there was no Clerk or Court Reporter present, etc. This put Colbert in a precarious situation. Rumors circulated that Colbert had ties to those defending the nightclub’s operation, raising serious concerns about impartiality.

The second incident involved Colbert’s alleged interactions with a Lafayette Police Department officer following a traffic stop. Colbert denied running a red light, but paid the fine. During the encounter, Colbert was allegedly “rude and verbally combative, repeatedly using profanity and calling him a liar.”

The Judicial Commission scheduled an evidentiary hearing for March 12, 2025, and the matter also appears on its April 25, 2025, docket.

The Royale Colbert Effect

What happens in Paris or Stockholm might seem like distant madness—until you see the same entitlement emboldened by our own judges, right here at home. On Monday, February 17, 2025, a meeting of the Lafayette Parish Library Board of Control was held. The recently “exonerated” Matthew Humphrey and the usual cadre of misfits were in attendance. This meeting would be somewhat different, though. No doubt, as a consequence of the earlier events in Colbert’s court, the malcontents took the opportunity to fully display the failures of our criminal justice system and the rule of law.

Nureaka Ross, a former candidate for Lafayette City Council, and reportedly the niece of Lafayette Parish Councilman AB Rubin (who also made a cameo appearance and yelled at the board at the same meeting), took center stage; likely emboldened by the outcome of the recent court case involving Humphrey. Ross began shouting at the Board members from the audience. This prompted Board member Ella Arsement to remark, “Get her out of here.” Ross continued to disrupt the meeting by aggressively walking up to the Board members, removing property and destroying it in some instances, throwing water bottles, and behaving like a toddler in a temper tantrum. Board members called for law enforcement personnel to intervene. However, the video doesn’t show anyone ever responding.

Ross’s actions are uncalled for and even criminal. Still, they are the expected consequences of a broken criminal justice system and a rogue judge who (no doubt) wouldn’t put up with such behavior in his own courtroom. If judges refuse to uphold the law, and law enforcement is paralyzed by politics, we shouldn’t be surprised when chaos becomes the new normal. How long will we tolerate tantrums as political speech and cowardice as judicial discretion?

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