By james art 
BATON ROUGE – Louisiana Supreme Court Justice-elect John Michael Guidry spoke to the Press Club Monday, detailing his goals for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
Guidry is scheduled to be sworn in in January.
“As a poor boy from the bottom of South Baton Rouge, raised most of his life by a single mother who went to work every single day,” Guidry said. “I understand some of the underlying problems that we have that lead to crime and things. I’ve lived through poverty. I’ve been in the shadows of life.”
The seat Guidry will fill is newly created and the second-majority black of the Supreme Court’s seven districts. The district extends from Iberville Parish to the Monroe area.
As previously reported, Guidry was originally in the three-man race, but Marcus Hunter and Leslie Chambers were found ineligible and removed from the ballot. That left Guidry as the only candidate in the newly created district.
“I will be only the fourth African-American justice in the 211-year history of the Louisiana Supreme Court,” he said. “I will be the fourth member and the only one selected from outside Orleans Parish.”
Guidry was elected to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997. Prior to that, he was active in the legislature, serving in both the state House of Representatives and Senate. Guidry said the experience carries over.
In the position, Guidry said he wants to use technology funds to improve court accessibility, explore expanding the state’s special courts and put a stronger emphasis on domestic violence cases and training the judges who handle those cases .
“We have a pilot domestic violence court in the 19th (District Court), we need to make that court permanent. We need to make sure we expand domestic violence courts across the state and make sure we have a justice system that is sensitive and responsive to this issue,” Guidry said.
Although Guidry is scheduled to be sworn in in January, he said his duties as a justice begin in December.