Hugo Holland, a controversial former Caddo Parish prosecutor in northwest Louisiana who was exposed for concealing evidence in three death penalty cases, was on track to win an open seat on the state’s First Judicial District Court this summer.
Despite his history of racially offensive remarks, including comparing a teenage Black defendant in a capital murder case to a dog, Holland, a Republican, faced no opponent and collected hefty campaign donations from prominent attorneys and former state judges in the deeply conservative region.
Then, at the last minute, on Aug. 7, Democrat attorney Treneisha Jackson Hill, 40, a Black former assistant district attorney in Caddo, jumped into the race.
Hill, while not marshaling nearly the amount of campaign funds as Holland — she reported $12,219 on hand as compared to his $44,318 in campaign finance reports filed this week — has since run on a platform of judicial fairness, transparency, and impartiality that has resonated with many voters looking for an alternative to Holland.
Although the courts never censured Holland for his prosecutorial misconduct, the state inspector general forced him to resign from the district attorney’s office in 2012 after the office found that he submitted false information to obtain a cache of M-16 rifles.
His apparent racism has also alienated others.
As an assistant district attorney in Caddo Parish from 1991 to 2012, Verite News New Orleans reported, Holland displayed a portrait of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, an original leader of the Ku Klux Klan, in his office, drawing accusations of racism from Black residents and defense attorneys.
Holland has insisted that he is not racist, claiming in interviews that he appreciated Forrest as a cavalry commander in the Civil War and not because he was a member of the Klan.
Activists, civil rights leaders, and community members in Shreveport and Caddo Parish have expressed strong opposition to Holland’s candidacy, focusing on his ethically dubious tactics and penchant for pursuing the death penalty against predominantly Black defendants over his 40-year prosecutorial career, at one point (from 2010 to 2014) making Caddo Parish the number one jurisdiction for death penalty cases per capita in the country.
In at least two death penalty cases, Louisiana judges found that Holland withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense, though the Louisiana Supreme Court ultimately upheld both convictions and death sentences that Holland helped secure, finding the withheld evidence would not have made a difference to the outcomes of the cases, Verite News reported.
In a third case involving the 1998 murder of a pizza delivery driver, Holland prosecuted 16-year-old Corey Williams as an adult, securing a conviction that sent him to prison for 20 years, including four on death row.
Prosecutors later threw out his death sentence because of his severe intellectual disability. As a child, Williams suffered extreme lead poisoning and spent time in a mental health institution.
During the trial, Holland told the jury, referring to Williams, “If the dog bites you once, you might keep it. If it bites you twice, you shouldn’t keep it. But when it bites you hard the third time, you get rid of it.”
Fifteen years later, Caddo Parish prosecutors admitted Holland and his team failed to turn over key evidence, including statements from witnesses on the night of the murder who told police Williams was innocent, and detectives who stated at the time they believed several older men were responsible.
Before the U.S. Supreme Court could take up the issue, however, Williams’ team agreed to a deal with prosecutors that allowed him to plead guilty to manslaughter and obstruction of justice in return for his 2018 release from prison.
Holland has said he did not withhold evidence and maintained that Williams is guilty.
Williams is now speaking out against Holland’s candidacy and urging voters to learn about his checkered past as a prosecutor.
“We just need an impartial judge on the seat,” he told KSLA News12 on Monday. “And I know, without a doubt, Hugo Holland would not be impartial. If he’s got the power to withhold evidence on criminal defendants, you know, as assistant DA, he’s way more dangerous sitting on the bench.”
Attorney Ben Cohen, who represented Williams in the death penalty case when he was 16, described Holland as “untrustworthy, unreserved in his aggression, and without any judicial temperament.” He brings disrepute to the justice system in a way that undermines people’s faith in it.”
Shreveport-based community activist Breka Peoples has been calling out the critical importance of the election to the Black community.
“Black families need to be able to walk into a courtroom believing they will receive fairness and equal justice,” she said, adding that “Holland’s record raises serious questions for me about whether our community could have that confidence with him on the bench.”
Local analysts and election observers expect Holland and Hill to face a fiercely contested judicial race on Election Day Tuesday. Holland entered the race with a sizable campaign war chest and widespread name recognition, but Hill’s candidacy has turned the contest into a partisan and racial battle.
The boundaries and racial makeup of Caddo Parish mirror those of the state’s First Judicial District — 50 percent Black, 42 percent white, 4 percent mixed race, and 4 percent Hispanic.
Hill, a native of Shreveport, graduated from Louisiana State University in 2008, majoring in sociology, and earned her law degree in 2011 from Southern University Law Center. The following year, the Caddo Parish DA’s office hired her, and she spent 11 years serving as a misdemeanor assistant, felony assistant, section chief, appellate attorney, and special prosecutor, according to her profile as a board member of a foundation supporting athletes at HBCU colleges.
She also clerked for two state judges and briefly worked as a federal prosecutor. Hill currently runs her own law firm in Shreveport with her husband.
At campaign appearances, during interviews, and in social media posts, usually without invoking Holland’s name, Hill emphasizes that she is the candidate voters can trust to be fair and impartial.
“You want a judge that is able to be objective,” Hill said during an interview with KGABNews10 in mid-October. “It’s not about your age, your race, who you are connected to,” she said. “The best way to ensure integrity on the bench is to actually be a person of integrity. … You should be able to walk into a courtroom and never have to ask if you will be treated fairly.”
After leaving the DA’s office in 2012, Holland, 62, became a successful prosecutor-for-hire for more than a dozen district attorneys who lacked the staff or expertise to try high-profile murder cases on their own, Verite News reported.
Despite his past scandals, Holland’s campaign for judge has earned the support of powerful figures, including a former state judge, the district attorney of neighboring Bossier and Webster parishes, an assistant district attorney with the Caddo Parish DA’s office, and members of major law firms throughout the area, Verite News observed.
In an interview earlier this year, Charles Jacobs, the city attorney for Bossier City and a former state judge who has known Holland for nearly 20 years, dismissed the accusations of racism.
“That guy cuts it right down the line — black or white, brown or yellow. He doesn’t care,” Jacobs said of Holland.
Louisiana’s age limit for judges is 70, allowing Holland to serve up to two six-year terms if elected.
But Hill faces an uphill battle in the election, as the Division F seat of the First Judicial District that she and Holland are running for is a largely white and conservative area, said Jeffrey Sadow, an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. Republican Katherine Dorroh, a white woman, currently holds the seat.
“She’s active in the community and is probably about the best candidate that you could find in that circumstance,” Sadow said of Hill. “But there’s going to be plenty of people showing up in that Republican district who see Republican versus Democrat and will just vote for the Republican. Even if they know nothing about the two candidates, which in a judicial election is likely.”
Peoples acknowledged the challenges Hill faces, but said she could still prevail, especially given Hill’s legal experience and the contrast she poses to Holland.
“A majority-white conservative district does not automatically mean voters will ignore a candidate’s record or qualifications,” Peoples said. “Our job is to make sure voters have the facts, know both candidates’ records, and understand exactly what is at stake in choosing the person who will sit on that bench.”