The 2004-5 scandal involving Eddie Jordan,  the first black District Attorney in Orleans, is atypical only in that he got caught.  After his election he fired 43 white employees (mostly investigators, not ADA's) and replaced them with black employees. The whites sued (duh? they're lawyers aren't they?), claiming racial discrimination. New Orleans lost. In 2006 the story emerged that none of the plantiffs has been paid any of the $2.4 million awarded and a judge has ruled that the plaintiffs' attorney must be paid.

Curiously this is the same Eddie Jordan (black) who as Federal Attorney successfully prosecuted Edwin Edwards (white) then chose not to go after State Senator Cleo Fields (black) previously Congressman Cleo Fields, when he videotaped Fields stuffing wads of money into his pants in the Governor's office. The explanation was that at the time Fields was a private citizen.

Jordan is also quoted as saying his ADA's are grossly underpaid. If he could pay more he could get better people. Would he? Or would he just pay the decidedly incompetent ones he has more of our money. Perhaps if he hadn't fired all the experienced staff and hired inexperienced employees he could get more convictions. Well he got his pay raises and even created a special highly paid squad to prosecute high profile cases.

In April 2007 Jordan was back in court appealing the racial discrimination judgment. This time he is in federal appeals court and once again he ran into trouble, this time with the judges. They were looking for a valid appeal, some point of law that was missed or a procedure not followed properly. Jordan and his lawyers seemed to miss the point and tried to re-argue the case on its merit. Their statistics and charts were not appreciated.

In August the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Jordan and ordered payment of $3.5 million in judgement, fees and interest to the plantiffs.