Savoy is accused of kidnapping his estranged wife and children from their Eunice home in December 2006 and leading police on a cross-parish chase that ended when he jumped off an Atchafalaya Basin bridge.
He remained at large until January 2007.
Savoy filed a motion in September accusing Judge Alonzo Harris of perjuring himself and Harris and District Attorney Earl Taylor and his staff and a host of other local and state officials of violating Savoy’s civil rights.
He filed the motion himself and was representing himself in court Thursday, though his court-appointed attorney Shepton Hunter was present.
Harris recused himself from hearing the motion and under rules of the court it was assigned to Judge Ellis Daigle.
When Daigle called on Savoy to state his case Thursday, Savoy surprised every with his motion to withdraw, a motion made after a huddle with his attorney and greeted with a collective sigh from those present.
Daigle accepted the motion and Savoy stomped out of the courtroom.
Before leaving himself, Hunter moved to postpone the jury selection, asserting his client has never been arraigned on part of the charges contained in a re-filed bill of information.
Daigle told him that that concern should be taken up with the trial judge -- Harris -- not in Daigle’s court.
Hunter is Savoy’s fourth attorney. Savoy has accused each of the first three of conspiring with the prosecution.
Judicial observers say each was attempting to negotiate the best resolution of Savoy’s charges. Savoy sees it differently.
During a 15-minute conversation Thursday while waiting for court to start, Savoy showed media representatives copies of correspondence to officials from Baton Rouge to Washington, including a several-pages long missive to President Obama.
As far as could be told, there was no letter to the Pope amid the stack of papers Savoy referred to.
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