here are probably easier ways to interview a judge than over a three-hour steak dinner. But somewhere between the mushrooms, steaks and stories at Ruth’s Chris, I realized an hour-long interview with Judge Jerry Denton was probably never going to happen anyway.
“I’ve lived a lot of life,” he told me with a laugh.
He certainly has.
Across the table sat his wife, Michelle, occasionally correcting a date or supplying the punchline Jerry conveniently left out. By the end of dinner, we had traveled from the bayous of Terrebonne Parish to undercover police work, from law school to an 18-wheeler, from Denham Springs City Hall to the bench, and eventually into the floodwaters of August 2016.
Before Jerry Denton was “Judge Denton,” he was simply a Cajun boy from Houma who knew how to work.
“I was born and raised in Houma, in a little community called Bayou Cane,” he said, his South Louisiana accent still unmistakable decades later.
After graduating from H.L. Bourgeois High School in 1975, where he served as student council president, Jerry went straight to work offshore. But he was waiting for an opening at the sheriff’s office, and as soon as one became available, he took it.
He began as a patrol deputy, attended the POST academy at Nicholls State University and eventually became a detective investigating major felonies.
Somehow, he was also going to college. Jerry worked shifts at the sheriff’s office while attending classes, drove an 18-wheeler hauling milk between Houma and Metairie and, when he apparently had too much free time, worked security as a nightclub bouncer.
Yes, the current Denham Springs City Court judge was once a bouncer.
“It was a nice place,” he quickly clarified, laughing.
By his early 20s, Jerry was a detective sergeant and eventually spent approximately two years undercover. The assignment required long hair and a beard. When Jerry finally came home clean-shaven, his young son, Trey, did not recognize him.
Jerry walked into the room and found Trey watching The Dukes of Hazzard with a bowl of dry cereal.
“Hey, Trey.”
Trey looked up, threw the cereal into the air and ran for his mother.
“He knew the voice, but he had no idea who that man was,” Jerry remembered.
It took Trey nearly two weeks to completely warm back up to him.
“That broke my heart,” Jerry said.
At the same time, Jerry was quietly building another future. He completed college while working and eventually enrolled in law school.
“You weren’t supposed to work in law school,” he said. “But I had a wife, a baby and a mortgage.”
So he worked anyway.
After graduating in 1987, Jerry completed a judicial clerkship, worked with a Baton Rouge law firm and eventually entered private practice.
When a major case came through the door, Jerry needed money quickly to finance it. He pawned the Rolex his father had given him for graduating from college. Jerry was the first in his family, as far back as he could trace, to earn a college degree.
He was betting on himself.
The case settled, giving him the capital to build his firm, and one of the first things he did was reclaim the watch.
“I got my watch back,” he said.
His career would eventually include criminal and civil practice as well as serving as a special prosecutor for the East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s Office and working in the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office.
Over time, though, Jerry noticed where his clients were coming from.
“Albany, Livingston, Denham, Walker, Holden, French Settlement.”
By 1997, Livingston Parish had become home. In 2000, he opened a law office in Denham Springs. He later served on the Denham Springs City Council before becoming Denham Springs City Marshal in 2009.
“Once you’ve been a police officer, it gets in your blood,” Jerry said. “It never gets out.”
He served as marshal until 2016, when he was elected judge of Denham Springs City Court. He took office in 2017, was reelected in 2020 without opposition and is now seeking another term on the bench.
For Jerry, it represents what he describes as “A Record of Service. A Lifetime of Experience.”
One phrase he keeps close is, “The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government,” words he believes speak to the responsibility that comes with the robe.
Since taking office, Denton says the court has worked to modernize operations and improve public access. Funding through a Literacy and Technology Fund administered by the Louisiana Supreme Court allowed outdated computer systems to be replaced without Livingston Parish taxpayer funding. The upgrades improved record keeping and communication while helping recover electronic records damaged during the 2016 flood.
The court also updated forms and its website, added an additional court day for complicated matters and introduced an ATM, lobby payment kiosk and online payment option. An initiative with the Louisiana Supreme Court is also underway to translate forms and public documents into bilingual formats.
But Jerry believes efficiency is only one part of administering justice.
When a judge puts on the robe, he believes it should never diminish the capacity for humanity. The person beneath that robe is imperfect and may not always get it right. What matters is never losing sight of that humanity and never stopping the pursuit of excellence, fairness and justice.
Somewhere along that winding road, there was also Michelle.
The couple met in 1995 through mutual friends. Jerry asked her out. She turned him down. He asked again. She turned him down again.
Eventually, Michelle decided she might as well go on a date with him and “get it over with.”
They saw The Bridges of Madison County. Jerry bought her a single rose.
Nearly three decades later, that date has turned into a marriage and a family. Trey is now an entrepreneur and LSU graduate. Their daughter, Brielle “Elle” Denton, graduated from Denham Springs High School and LSU and is now studying to become a physician assistant.
Michelle has built a 36-year career in education and today serves as principal of Gray’s Creek Elementary School. Their careers may look different, but both have centered on serving others.
Their household also includes Gus and Mac, the Aussiedoodles, and Ollie, the Maltese. Ollie is the smallest and, naturally, the boss.
“He’s tough,” Jerry said.
And because being a judge, detective, lawyer, truck driver and former bouncer apparently was not enough, Jerry also plays seven musical instruments.
For all of Jerry’s stories, though, one chapter brings the conversation squarely back to Livingston Parish.
August 2016.
Jerry was still city marshal when forecasts began warning that the river could rise to approximately 43 feet. As the water climbed, the Dentons and friends moved belongings into trucks and the attic.
“I lost all my clothes, but saved one pair of alligator boots that I still have to this day,” he said.
By midnight, they evacuated through areas of chest-deep water with their dogs.
After helping his family reach safety, Jerry returned to assist with rescue efforts alongside first responders and volunteers.
“The next weeks were a blur.”
There were deer swimming through neighborhoods, stranded animals and snakes “hanging from the trees like spaghetti” between Denham Springs and Baton Rouge. At one point, they pulled a swimming fawn into an airboat and carried it to higher ground.
The Dentons later discovered approximately nine feet of water had entered their home. Michelle had placed precious family photographs inside her vehicle for safekeeping, only for the car to flood too. When they returned, they discovered the water pressure had pushed the photographs against the top of the vehicle, creating a seal.
The photos survived by the grace of God.
Despite losing much of their own property, both remained concerned about the people around them.
“Denham pulled together. Livingston pulled together,” Jerry said.
Old friendships grew stronger and new friendships were forged in the flood. Neighbors helped neighbors, strangers became friends, and first responders and volunteers worked side by side.
The memories remain. Heavy rain can still bring back an anxiety that was not there before August 2016, but Jerry also remembers what came afterward: a community determined to rebuild.
For a man whose life has taken an unusually winding route to the bench, service has remained one of the constants.
A plaque in his office bears a saying he has repeated for years: “Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”
After three hours around a dinner table with Jerry and Michelle, though, the judicial robe felt like only one piece of the story.
There was the detective, the bouncer and the truck driver. The musician who plays seven instruments. The young lawyer who pawned the Rolex his father gave him for graduating from college to bet on himself. The husband who had to keep asking before Michelle finally agreed to one date. The father whose little boy once failed to recognize him without a beard. The marshal who sent his family to safety and turned around to go back into the floodwaters.
And before all of those titles, there was simply a Cajun boy from Bayou Cane who followed his dreams until Livingston Parish became home.
“I’ve lived a lot of life,” Jerry told me near the beginning of dinner.
Three hours later, I believed him.
