Louisiana Republicans move to eliminate court office won by exonerated man | New Orleans

A man imprisoned for nearly 30 years before being exonerated won a historic election in New Orleans by promising to fix a justice system that had failed him. Now Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and the Republican-controlled state legislature are rushing to eliminate his position before he can be sworn in.

Calvin Duncan won 68 percent of the vote last November to become clerk of the Orleans Parish Criminal Court after pledging to reform the justice system based on his own experience struggling to access court records while in a maximum security prison.

Duncan rebuilt his life, in part by running for and winning the clerk’s job. But Republicans in the Louisiana state Senate voted Wednesday to eliminate Duncan’s new position as part of a broader effort to streamline the justice system in New Orleans, a Democratic heartland with a majority black electorate. The state Legislature is largely Republican and white — and the deeply red state has led the effort to gut the Voting Rights Act.

Duncan’s swearing-in is scheduled for May 4.

He told The Associated Press that he believes he will face retaliation from Louisiana officials who have long denied his innocence, even though his name is on the national registry of exonerations.

Republicans say it’s not a personal move and defend the effort as a step toward making government more efficient.

“The citizens of New Orleans overwhelmingly said, ‘I want to give this person a chance, they can make a difference,’” Duncan, a Democrat, told lawmakers during a committee hearing in March. “What this bill does is it says, ‘Thank you, but you wasted your time.’ This disenfranchises everyone.

The case began with the 1981 murder of 23-year-old David Yeager and landed Duncan in prison for more than 28 years. In 2011, on the eve of a hearing to review new evidence, prosecutors proposed reducing Duncan’s sentence to time served if he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery. Duncan was released, but he didn’t give up trying to clear his name.

Ultimately, in 2021, a judge recognized that he had been wrongly convicted and overturned Duncan’s sentence altogether.

As state attorney general in 2023, Landry opposed Duncan’s request to be compensated for his wrongful conviction. Duncan withdrew the petition after Landry’s successor, Liz Murrill, threatened to go after Duncan’s law license in the state. When Duncan ran for clerk, Murrill vowed to take “further action” against him if he didn’t stop calling himself “exonerated.”

Landry and Murrill pointed out that Duncan accepted the 2011 plea deal for involuntary manslaughter and armed robbery.

“The attorney general made it clear during the election that if I continued to speak accurately about my innocence and exoneration, I would face consequences from his office,” Duncan told the Associated Press. “We are seeing these consequences today as she and the governor attempt to overturn the will of 68 percent of New Orleans voters. »

Murrill said she had “no involvement” in the decision to eliminate the office.

Landry told the AP that eliminating Duncan’s elected position was about improving “the efficiency of government” and “cleaning up a system in [New Orleans] which has been plagued by dysfunction and corruption for years.”

Supporters of consolidating the criminal court clerk with the civil court clerk say the offices are being consolidated in other parishes. Eliminating the criminal court clerk position would save the state about $27,300, according to the legislative auditor’s office, which added that the costs of consolidating clerks’ offices are “unknown.”

The bill’s Republican author, Sen. Jay Morris, who represents a northern Louisiana district, acknowledged that once Duncan’s elected position is eliminated, the civil court clerk could have difficulty handling the influx of cases. The solution, he says, is “to hire someone.”

Other New Orleans judicial officials whose positions could be eliminated in the future would be allowed to serve out their terms — but not Duncan.

Morris told lawmakers the goal was to pass the law in time to prevent Duncan from taking office before his four-year term begins.

The bill, poised to pass the GOP-controlled House and approved by Landry, would take effect immediately with the governor’s signature.

“I’ve never seen anything so barbaric,” state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat representing New Orleans, said on the Senate floor. “I understand politics and I know you’re all going to vote the way you’re going to vote. But just know that when we’re all done here, history will have a record.”

Duncan, 62, was the driving force behind a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended non-unanimous jury convictions. He also founded a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding incarcerated people’s access to the justice system. He said his election to the clerk’s office was the culmination of his life’s work.