The Hon. Kimya M. Holmes is a judge for the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court of Louisiana. She was elected to the bench in 2020.
Holmes received a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Orleans. She then completed a J.D. at Southern University Law Center. Holmes was admitted to practice in Louisiana in 2001.
She began her legal career as a prosecutor with the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office. Holmes later accepted a position as a senior staff attorney with the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, where she represented indigent offenders charged with first-degree murder in Louisiana. During her tenure, she held the distinction of being First Chair on homicide cases, and she sat on the Criminal Justice Act Panel for the Eastern District of Louisiana and was on the faculty of the National College for Capital Voir Dire in Boulder, Colorado. Holmes also acted as an attorney advisor to the Department of Health & Human Services.
Her memberships include the Louisiana State Bar Association, the New Orleans Bar Association, the Louisiana Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand, and the Louis A. Martinet Legal Society. Holmes is also an active member of St. Peter Claver Catholic Church and a past president of Krewe of Themis.
She is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, where she attended Eleanor McMain High School. Holmes continues to reside there with her two children.
She is registered as a Democrat.