On Wednesday, April 29, 2026, KPLC reported that a Lake Charles judge was removed from a clergy sexual abuse lawsuit due to his failure to fully disclose financial ties to the church involved in the case.

Judge Kendrick Guidry of the 14th Judicial District Court recused himself from the lawsuit after it was revealed he had recently joined Immaculate Heart of Mary’s Finance Committee, giving him a direct financial interest in the case’s outcome.

The lawsuit involves a woman, identified as Jane Doe, who accuses Father James Burke of sexually abusing her during confession at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Lake Charles between approximately 1985 and 1989, when she was between 5 and 9 years old.

During a hearing on March 31, Guidry disclosed his membership in Immaculate Heart of Mary, the defendant church. While both sides agreed that church membership alone wasn’t disqualifying, the hearing proceeded. Guidry then sided with the Diocese of Lake Charles, ruling that Louisiana’s “lookback law,” which allows childhood sexual abuse survivors to file claims that had previously expired, was an unconstitutional “taking” of the church’s property rights.

This ruling made Guidry the only Louisiana judge to rule against the lookback window after the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in June 2024. Attorney General Liz Murrill had filed a legal brief defending the law’s constitutionality.

Attorneys for Jane Doe filed a motion for recusal on April 15, after learning of Guidry’s committee role. Guidry acknowledged the omission in an email, stating that his Finance Committee appointment was “still new to me and it slipped my mind at the recent hearing.”

Guidry updated his biography on the 14th Judicial District Court’s website on April 15 to reflect his Finance Committee membership.

The case has now been reassigned to Judge Michael Canaday of the 14th Judicial District Court. In an earlier clergy abuse lawsuit involving a church in the Diocese of Lake Charles, Canaday rejected the same constitutional arguments the Diocese later presented before Guidry.

 

 

Source: KPLC