C. Hearn Taylor, retired juvenile court judge, dies

Retired Orleans Parish Juvenile Court Judge C. Hearn Taylor, a longtime community activist and justice advocate, passed away August 21 at Oschner Medical Center in Kenner, La. He was 65.

The Charlottesville, Va., native moved to New Orleans in 1983 and was first elected to the bench in Orleans Parish Juvenile Court eight years later. He retired in 2008.

JUDGE TAYLOR

Taylor earned a bachelor’s degree from Howard University and a juris doctorate from the Southern University Law Center.

While in D.C., Taylor worked pin the U.S. Department of Justice and was instrumental in resolving a situation during which inmates seized control of a detainment area in a federal courthouse and arranged for the release of captive. For that feat, he was honored by the DOJ and on the U.S. Senate floor.

He was also awarded an Earl Warren Legal Scholarship from the NAACP to attend the Southern University Law Center.

While in Baton Rouge, Taylor worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and was active in the American Bar Association’s Law Student Division, serving as chairman of the Law Student Division of the ABA’s House of Delegates, its policymaking division.

After graduating from the SULC, he returned to D.C. to work in the DOJ and in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development before relocating to New Orleans in 1983.

Throughout his three decades as a New Orleanian, Judge Taylor served as a mentor to young Black males and sought to raise awareness about the challenges Black youth face in the Crescent City.

He sat on the boards of the City Park Improvement Association, Each One Save One, the Velocity Foundation, the Boys & Girls Club of Greater New Orleans, the Holman Vocational Center and the Orleans Parish School Board Derham School Community Resource Center as well as on the advisory board of the NO/AIDS Task Force.

Taylor taught part-time at Xavier and was a member of 100 Black Men, the Louis B. Martinet Legal Society, Jack & Jill of America, the Louisiana Supreme Court’s Task Force on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts, the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforce­ment and the Admin­istration of Criminal Justice, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. and the National, American and Louisiana bar associations.

He was named an outstanding alumnus by the Southern University Law Center and was the recipient of the American Bar Association’s Silver Key Award, the Outstanding Jurist Award from Citizens and Victims Against Crime of Greater New Orleans, the Alliance for Good Government’s Herbert Hoover Eddington Award and the Lawman of the Year Award from Kiwanis International’s Big Easy chapter.

C. Hearn Taylor is survived by his wife, Janice Chenier Taylor; a daughter, Chenier Hearn Taylor of New York City’ a brother, William Roscoe Taylor III of Rockville, MD.; and a sister, Marilyn Taylor Edwards of New Orleans, La.

A Mass of Christian burial was held Friday at St. Anthony of Padua Church in New Orleans, preceded by visitation and a remembrance service on Thursday at D. W. Rhodes Funeral Home Chapel.

This article originally published in the September 1, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.