Lafayette City Court Judge Michelle M. Odinet is facing calls to resign after a video surfaced showing racial slurs being used in her home.  

According to the Associated Press, the video shows a television set displaying security footage of a burglary at the judge’s home.  

As the security footage is watched, laughter can be heard in the background of the leaked video. One person in the video says, “That’s me. And mom’s yelling ‘n—-, n—-.'” Another individual in the video then says, “We have a n—-. It’s a n—-, like a roach.”  

The person involved in the burglary, a 59-year-old Black man, was arrested on Saturday, according to police.  

After the video surfaced on social media, Odinet said she did not recall the video. “I was given a sedative at the time of the video. I have zero recollection of the video and the disturbing language used during it,” she said in a statement. “Anyone who knows me and my husband knows this is contrary to the way we live our lives.”  

Odinet has not identified the speakers in the video, and she did not say if she was one of the individuals heard in the recording, the AP reported.  

As the judge asks for “understanding, forgiveness, patience and prayers,” many are calling for her resignation, including the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus and the president of the Lafayette Chapter of the NAACP, Michael Toussaint.  

“I have never met Judge Odinet, only heard her voice in campaign ads. But because she has confirmed the video was in fact taken inside her home, one would think that as a sitting judge, a mother, a community leader, a person in position of authority, that she would have stepped up and taken a stand against that type of language in her own home,” Toussaint said.  

The Louisiana ACLU also released the following statement:  

Judge Odinet appears to have used an abhorrent racial epithet and compared an African American person to a cockroach. Judges are entrusted to uphold the Constitutional guarantee of equal rights under law in all matters civil and criminal. This behavior calls into question Judge Odinet’s fitness to sit in judgment of Black defendants who appear before her court. Equal justice under the law means nothing if judges come to their duties viewing some people as subhuman. We condemn these remarks and the acceptance they received in Judge Odinet’s home, and we ask that the matter be investigated by the Judiciary Board of Louisiana. 

Odinet has been a Lafayette Court Judge since Nov. 2020. Before that, she was a prosecutor for the Orleans and Lafayette Parish District Attorney’s offices. 

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