New Orleans attorney Kenneth Robin Bowen, one of five former city police officers who pleaded guilty earlier this year in the police-involved shooting on Danziger Bridge following Hurricane Katrina, has been allowed to resign from the Louisiana State Bar after a June 5 Louisiana Supreme Court order.
Bowen asked to be allowed to permanently resign in lieu of discipline, according to the one-page order issued by the state high court. The office of disciplinary counsel concurred in Bowen's petition, according to the order.
Bowen was admitted to the bar in Louisiana on Oct. 28, 2005, according to his profile at the Louisiana State Bar's website.
Bowen was one of five former New Orleans Police Department officers charged in in federal civil rights prosecution that arose from the Sept. 4, 2005, shootings on the Danziger Bridge on U.S. Interstate 90 over the Inner Harbor navigation canal. Two people were killed, including a mentally retarded man who was shot in the back, and four others were gravely wounded, including a woman whose arm had to be amputated. All of the victims were African American. Lengthy federal civil rights litigation followed.
Bowen was among the five officers convicted in August 2011 on multiple counts connected to the shootings and the following December he received a 40-year sentence. A federal judge vacated the convictions in September 2013.
This past April, the U.S. Justice Department announced the five former NOPD officers had entered guilty pleas and had been sentenced. Bowen pleaded guilty to deprivation of rights under color of law, conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice by engaging in misleading conduct, according to a Justice Department news release. Bowen was sentenced to 10 years in prison, to be followed by up to 5 years of supervised release on two counts and up to 3 years on the third count, according to the news release.
In accepting his request to be allowed to resign from the state bar, the high court also ordered that Bowen be permanently prohibited from practicing law in Louisiana or in any other jurisdiction in which he is admitted to the practice of law. He also is permanently prohibited from seeking readmission in Louisiana or in any other jurisdiction.