Kaliste Saloom, Jr.

Kaliste Joseph Saloom, Jr.
Judge of the Lafayette City Court
In office 1953–1993
Born	May 15, 1918 Lafayette, Louisiana
Died	December 2, 2017 Lafayette, Louisiana
Political party	Democrat
Spouse(s)	Yvonne Adelle Nassar Saloom (married 1958-2017, his death)
Children	Kaliste Saloom, III Judge Douglas J. Saloom Leanne Saloom Howell Gregory J. Saloom Parents: Kaliste Saloom, Sr. Asma Boustany Saloom
Occupation	Lawyer
Religion	Roman Catholic

Kaliste Joseph Saloom, Jr. (May 15, 1918 – December 2, 2017), was for forty years the judge of the municipal court in his native Lafayette, Louisiana. A highly regarded local official who obtained national recognition, Saloom was inducted in 2016 into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame, based in Winnfield in north Louisiana. He was also an historian.

Background

Saloom was one of eight children born to a Lebanese couple, Kaliste Saloom, Sr. (1886-1925), and the former Asma Ann Boustany. His father died at the age of thirty-nine when Saloom was six. His mother continued to operate the family mercantile business, Saloom's, which had been established in 1907 and family operated for more than a century. Young Kaliste, Jr., worked in the accounts department and delivered goods to customers by bicycle or horse-drawn wagon. He also worked for the Lafayette White Sox baseball team, which assigned him to keep score and to report game results to the news media. 

In 1935, Saloom graduated as the valedictorian of the Roman Catholic-affiliated Cathedral High School in Lafayette. In 1939, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the  University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 1942, he earned his Juris Doctor degree from the Tulane University Law School in New Orleans. He was a member of the Order of the Coif and contributed to the Tulane Law Review. 

During World War II, Saloom joined the United States Army  and served in North Africa, France, and Germany as a special agent for the Army Counter Intelligence Corps. He received two battle stars for service in the North African and European theaters of operation. He worked with Scotland Yard to protect Winston Churchill when the British prime minister was in Morocco recuperating from pneumonia. In 1945, Saloom was assigned to the task force that captured the German General Karl Cerff, the head of the group Nazi Youth.

Career

Discharged from the Army in 1946, he returned to Lafayette to open his legal practice. In 1948, he was appointed Lafayette city attorney, in which capacity he was instrumental in the development of the municipal utilities system and in the establishment of permanent voter registration for Lafayette Parish. In 1953, he became Lafayette City Court Judge, a post which he filled until 1993. He never sought another political office. A Democrat, he avoided siding with either the Earl Long or the anti-Long faction and often drew backing from both sides. One of Saloom's reforms involved the placing of control of traffic tickets under his city court jurisdiction. A four-way traffic ticket system created a multi-layered record that made it much more difficult for officials to "fix" tickets for friends and political supporters. For a time, more tickets in Lafayette Parish had been fixed than tried. According to his obituary, Judge Saloom's reforms became a model for other systems in the state and nation. He worked to enhance traffic safety, to protect children, and to improve the overall administration of justice. 

Judge Saloom halted the previous practice of docketing cases based on the race of a defendant. Instead, he called cases by name and docket number with out mention of race. He instituted other measures that protected the rights of the accused. He used lawyers, rather than police officers, to prosecute cases. He worked to obtain legal counsel for indigent defendants. Saloom was the only city judge in Lafayette until 1984, when the court added a second judge. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Lafayette Juvenile Detention Home and the Acadiana Safety Council.

From 1960 to 1964, Saloom served on the Judicial Council of the Louisiana Supreme Court Judicial Council, the first city court judge to have been so designated. He was twice chairman of the state Supreme Court’s Special Committee for Revision of Louisiana Highway Traffic Laws. He worked in the drafting of the uniform traffic code as well as the codes for criminal and civil procedures. He was instrumental in the passage of the Small Claims Court Act and the federal Drunk Driving Prevention Act.

In 1965, Saloom received the Lafayette Civic Cup; the next year, he was named "Man of the Year" by the Salvation Army in Lafayette. He was active in the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana. In 1999, Saloom became the only city court judge in the nation to receive the Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Award, which was presented by Burger’s successor, William Rehnquist. In addition to the Political Hall of Fame, Judge Saloom was an inductee of the Louisiana State Justice Hall of Fame (2006),  the Acadian Museum (Erath, Louisiana) Hall of Fame’s Order of Living Legends (2009), the Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame (2014), and the first class of the Lafayette Bar Association Hall of Fame (also 2014). 

Death

Saloom died in Lafayette at the age of ninety-nine. Services for Judge Saloom were held on December 9, 2017, at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in Lafayette. Burial followed with full military honors at St. John Cemetery in Lafayette. A reception will follow at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Alumni Center. Saloom was married for fifty-nine years to the former Yvonne Adelle Nassar (born 1935), a native of Jackson, Mississippi, who Saloom met as she was preparing to attend H. Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans. The couple courted for five years before their marriage in 1958. They have four surviving children: attorney Kaliste Saloom, III, who was married to Leah Antoinette Richardson Saloom (1958-2007), a native of De Soto Parish; Douglas J. Saloom, the Lafayette City Court judge, and his wife, the former Mary Margaret Bienvenu; Leanne Saloom Howell, and her husband, Evan Howell, III; and Gregory J. Saloom, a retired major in the U.S. Army, and his wife, the former Shari Yount;  eleven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. Judge Saloom was a great-uncle by marriage to the retired physician and former U.S. Representative Charles William Boustany, Jr., of Louisiana's 3rd congressional district, a Republican.

Saloom is honored through the Judge Kaliste Saloom, Jr., Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Political Science at the University of Louisiana. His life story is included in the ULL archives.