JUDGE CAN'T BE TOO CAREFUL

When it comes to observing the Louisiana code of ethics, state district
Judge Ronnie Bodenheimer is a stickler.

He is so keen to avoid any impropriety that he won't make a move without
the state ethics board's OK. That Bodenheimer should be so meticulous is
odd, given his current predicament. Suspended and under house arrest, he
faces the threat of a long stretch in the federal pen.

He is nevertheless so keen to play by the rules that he has inquired
whether it would be all right to dip into his election campaign fund to pay
for his defense.

What he has in the fund, however, would not keep a high-powered defense
lawyer going long enough to complete jury selection. At the end of last
year, he showed a balance of just under $10,000. The fund is unlikely to
grow much in the future, moreover, since Bodenheimer's re-election
prospects dimmed considerably when he was dragged into court in chains and
held in jail under suicide watch.

In the circumstances, one might not expect Bodenheimer to care much about
getting in Dutch with the ethics board. If he up and spent the campaign
money, and were subsequently found in violation of the ethics code, it
would be of only academic interest.

If he were acquitted, he would have little need to fear the wrath of the
board, which, though it will occasionally fine some errant official, is
pretty much a pussy cat.

State law allows politicians to spend campaign donations to pay defense
lawyers so long as the alleged offenses are related to official duties. "It
depends on the circumstances, but (the law is) pretty broad," ethics board
attorney Maris McCrory has said.

It would have to be pretty broad to cover some of the crimes the feds
allege Bodenheimer committed around a marina he owned in Venetian Isles,
where residents complained of drug dealing and various zoning and safety
violations. Bodenheimer, according to the feds, arranged to have illegal
drugs planted in his principal critic's car.

A frame-up in eastern New Orleans has no obvious connection with the duties
of a Gretna jurist, but it may be that Bodenheimer will eventually be
indicted on other charges that meet ethics board standards for the use of
campaign money.

The feds have seized records of fried-chicken magnate Al Copeland's divorce
and child-custody case in which he apparently found Bodenheimer a most
sympathetic judge. Bodenheimer handled the case, although Copeland had
chipped in for his 1999 election campaign, and proceeded to issue a couple
of rulings that the court of appeal found less than even-handed.

The FBI has also raided the offices of Louis Marcotte III, who has a
virtual monopoly of the bail bond business in Jefferson Parish and has
always been on cordial terms with the judiciary. The grand jury has yet to
hand down any indictments, but the scope of the investigation seems so
broad that the ethics board might well allow Bodenheimer to grab the money
his political supporters expected to pay for yard signs and campaign flyers.

Bodenheimer, meanwhile, might be well advised to follow the lead of earlier
politicians in need of a mouthpiece and establish a separate legal defense
fund for his supporters to kick into. However this case turns out,
re-election seems out of the question. Bodenheimer, a former prosecutor who
ran for judge as the scourge of the criminal classes, turns out to find
their company quite congenial. Several of his associates and partners in
the marina business are convicted felons.

The feds, with their tapes of apparently conspiratorial phone
conversations, seem confident that Bodenheimer will soon be a convicted
felon too, and it is unfortunate for him that the victim of the drug set-up
had been recruited as an informant. The feds were close by when the drugs
were allegedly planted.

But we only have the government's side of the story so far, and Bodenheimer
is evidently willing to take a chance on beating the rap. Last week he
turned down a plea bargain that would have given him 30 months, a pretty
modest stretch by comparison with what he would get if he went to trial and
were convicted.

In requesting the ethics board ruling, moreover, Bodenheimer is
"demonstrating that he believes he will be vindicated," according to one of
his attorneys. Vindication doesn't come cheap, but Bodenheimer should bear
in mind that not only can campaign money be used to pay for a defense but
that whatever he spends out of his own pocket can be reimbursed at the
discretion of the Legislature -- so long as he is acquitted and the alleged
offenses are deemed relevant to his official duties.

In his shoes, most people would probably not be fretting over ethical minutiae.