Louisiana’s Republican attorney general was indicted Thursday on criminal charges by a grand jury in New Orleans, accused of trying to intimidate local officials who fought a law enacted by GOP legislators to overhaul the local courts.
Attorney General Liz Murrill told eight New Orleans officials, including Mayor Helena Moreno and District Attorney Jason Williams, that they could face removal from their jobs for opposing the law. It eliminated the position of Orleans Parish criminal court clerk after a man who spent decades in prison for a wrongful conviction was elected to the post with 68% of the vote.
Legislators approved the law at Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s urging just days before Calvin Duncan was to take office in May. Duncan’s supporters saw it as a move by a majority white conservative Legislature to thwart the will of voters in a predominantly Black Democratic hub in a red state.
Duncan was a jailhouse lawyer who later graduated from law school. He founded a nonprofit dedicated to expanding incarcerated people’s access to the court system and was the driving force behind a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended nonunanimous jury convictions. Murrill and other Louisiana officials have long denied his innocence even though he is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.
Bond for Murrill was set at $400,000 on Thursday, according to court records. Landry slammed the indictment in a social media post on Thursday, promising to pardon Murrill “as fast as the law allows.”
“The criminal justice system is a circus at its finest in Orleans and we will not have any of that!” he wrote on X, where he called the system a “Kangaroo court.”
The Republican Attorneys General Association called the indictment “as outrageous as it is dangerous.”
The GOP group said in making her statements that Murrill was simply “issuing a legal opinion and warning public officials about the law” as part of her official duties. Murrill’s critics saw it as an attempt to intimidate them into accepting the law.
Local officials had a swearing-in ceremony for Duncan on the steps of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court two weeks before he was to take office — while lawmakers still were considering the measure to eliminate his job, combining its duties with those of the civil court clerk.
The City Council also sought to oust the civil court clerk in May and set a special election for November to fill the combined job — and give Duncan a chance to claim it. That prompted Murrill to warn local officials that they could lose their offices for violating the state “usurper” laws, which forbid support for an unauthorized officeholder.
Moreno, a Democrat, said in a statement that the indictment is “a matter for the courts” and did not directly address the allegations against Murrill.
“My focus, as always, remains on fulfilling the responsibilities the people of New Orleans elected me to carry out,” Moreno said.
Assistant Attorney General Laurie White, who is prosecuting the case, addressed reporters after the indictment.
“We’re very interested in elected officials in New Orleans not being intimidated or threatened by letter or any other way,” White said.
She said she expected the case will be “very simple” and “very open and shut.”
In response to Landry's promise to pardon Murrill, she said, "Let’s get her convicted, and then he can pardon her.”
Those who backed the law eliminating Duncan’s elected position argue that it promotes government efficiency and tries to improve a dysfunctional court system in Orleans Parish. They also said the offices of criminal and civil clerks of courts are combined in other parishes.
But Duncan has said he believes state officials were retaliating against him.
He sought compensation from the state over his imprisonment but withdrew his petition after Murrill threatened to go after his law license because he referred to hisself as exonerated. She also demanded during his campaign that he stop describing himself that way or face “further action.”
Duncan spent more than 28 years in prison in connection with a fatal shooting during a robbery in 1981.
The night before a 2011 hearing to consider new evidence, prosecutors offered to reduce Duncan’s sentence to the time he’d already served in prison if he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery. Duncan took the deal and was freed but didn’t give up on clearing his name.
In 2021, a judge agreed that Duncan had been unjustly convicted and vacated his sentence altogether. Landry and Murrill have pointed to the 2011 plea deal in objecting to Duncan calling himself exonerated.
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Associated Press reporter Jack Brook contributed from New Orleans.
