Louisiana Supreme Court overturns Baton Rouge judge’s decision to sentence rapist to 50 years in prison

BATON ROUGE – The Louisiana Supreme Court said Thursday that a judge in Baton Rouge made an error when she overturned a man’s rape conviction even though he had only asked for a reduced sentence.

Judge Gail Horne Ray, whose son is a serial rapist, did not have the authority to acquit Donald Ray Link of a 1972 rape, the court said. One judge accused Ray of a “manifest abuse of discretion.”

Link has been behind bars for five decades and had asked Ray to reduce his sentence so he could be eligible for parole. Instead, Ray overturned Link’s conviction and said she wanted to set him free.

East Baton Rouge County prosecutors immediately asked the state Supreme Court to intervene, and on Thursday the court overturned Ray’s decision. Link was never released and, following Thursday’s ruling, likely never will be.

The court’s unsigned order said Ray made several errors: she applied a portion of the law reserved for appellate courts, incorrectly found that Link’s jury had received poor instructions, failed to ask Link to plead an alleged illegality in his verdict, and considered his motion even though it was not filed on time.

“We reinstate the conviction and sentence and deny defendant’s (link) motion for clarification and/or modification of his sentence,” the court said in announcing its 6-0 decision.

District Attorney Hillar Moore III said his office was pleased that the judges had rejected the judge and Link.

“We are grateful that the Louisiana Supreme Court has reinstated this decades-old conviction and sentence,” Moore said. “The court went a step further and ruled on the defendant’s motion that was originally before the trial court, confirming that the sentence imposed in 1973 was absolutely legal and valid.”

The judges said Link had exhausted all of his claims and the denial was final. To make another claim, he would have to find a narrow exception to the laws prohibiting consecutive appeals, the court said.

Link had argued in 2022 that Ray took too long to comply with a request to reconsider his sentence, and the state Supreme Court ordered her to take action. In a concurring opinion Thursday, Judge Scott Crichton said Ray’s actions following that order were inappropriate.

“The district court’s ill-considered response to the order was to issue a grossly erroneous judgment that took on a retributive, if not contemptuous, tone and, incredibly, resulted in the creation of an illegal remedy that defendant (Link) had not even sought,” Crichton wrote.

Prosecutors said Ray’s decision to release Link was unprecedented.

The judge’s son, Nelson Dan Taylor Jr., was convicted at age 17 after admitting to a series of rapes.

Taylor, a former track star at Baton Rouge Magnet High School, was accused of breaking into the homes of six girls and raping them between October 1995 and April 1996. During the course of the investigation, investigators said seven of the nine girls who were victims of a series of attacks were students at BRHS.

Taylor’s plea deal did not include the possibility of a life sentence, and he was sentenced to 50 years in prison. As part of the deal, he had to serve at least 25 years of the sentence.

Link was convicted of a November 18, 1972, rape in which he threatened the victim with a butcher knife. The jury heard his confession and sentenced him to life in prison in 1973. The state Supreme Court upheld the sentence in 1974.

Ray also reduced bail for an accused rapist last year, approving a lower bail amount before his alleged victim’s family found out. Moore had to go to court to get De’Aundre Cox returned to prison. He said prosecutors were not allowed to argue against the bail reduction at the time; Ray later confirmed that Cox was allowed to be released on the lower bail amount.

Ray is also the judge who will hear rape charges against three men accused of attacking LSU student Madison Brooks after a night of drinking at Tigerland in early 2023.

After her initial ruling in the Link case, court administrator Diana Gibbens said Ray was barred from making comments due to judicial rules.