Alicia Jeannette Theriot Knoll is a long-term member of the Louisiana Supreme Court from Marksville in Avoyelles Parish in south central Louisiana.
Education
Reared in Gueydan in Vermilion Parish in southwestern Louisiana, she moved again to New Orleans, where she graduated from Saint James Major High School. She further studied music on a voice scholarship at Loyola University Music School in New Orleans.
Career
She is one of three Democrats on the seven-member court, which has been presided over since 2013 by Chief Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson, an African-American Democrat from New Orleans. A native of Baton Rouge, Alicia Knoll, known as Jeannette, is one of ten children of Alfred Joseph Theriot and the former Marie Bailey. She was invited to be a guest soloist with the New Orleans Philharmonic Symphony and the New Orleans Summer Pops.
In 1966, Knoll obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the Roman Catholic-affiliated Loyola University in New Orleans.
In 1969, she procured the Juris Doctor from Loyola Law School. Much later, in 1996, as a judge, she obtained a Master of Laws in the judicial process from the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In 1982, Knoll was elected to Louisiana Court of Appeal for the Third Circuit, First District, Division A, which encompassed eight parishes. She defeated the African-American attorney from Alexandria, Edward Larvadain, Junior., 47,581 (81 percent) to 11,165 (19 percent).
On September 21, 1996, Knoll was elected to the Louisiana Supreme Court seat for the Third District, which encompassed all or parts of eleven parishes.
She had no opposition for a second ten-year term on the high court in the 2006 election. From 1972 to 1992, Knoll had been the first assistant district attorney for the 12th Judicial District Court in Marksville. Her husband, Jerold Edward "Eddie" Knoll, Senior
(born 1941), son of the late Edmond Knoll and the former Myrtle Humphries of Simmesport in Avoyelles Parish, was the Democratic former district attorney at the time.
Earlier, she had been the public defender for indigent cases in Avoyelles Parish. She also represented pro bono the Selective Service System board in Marksville.
Knoll is an instructor for the Louisiana Judicial College and a past president of the Business and Professional Women"s Foundation. He was inducted in 2007 into the Louisiana Justice Hall of Fame.
In 2000, Knoll was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.
However, former Chief Justice Catherine Doctorate. Kimball was inducted in 2011.
Membership
She is the only current member of the Louisiana Supreme Court to have received this honor.