They finally did it. A New Orleans grand jury slapped Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill with a 16-count indictment on Thursday. The charge? Intimidation and malfeasance. It is a nasty escalation in the ongoing cold war between the state’s deep-red Republican leadership and the blue bastion of New Orleans. Murrill, the state’s first female AG, stands accused of threatening local Democratic leaders who dared to fight a state-mandated overhaul of the city’s court system.
Republican Governor Jeff Landry wasted no time. He promised a swift pardon. Landry blasted the proceedings, calling the grand jury an “Orleans Kangaroo court” and claiming he would not let Murrill’s reputation be dragged through the mud. Meanwhile, Murrill herself fired back. She called the indictment “retaliatory, meritless, and unconstitutional” before immediately begging the Louisiana Supreme Court for an emergency stay. “I will not back down,” she blustered on social media.
This whole mess started over a court clerk’s office. Specifically, an office won by Calvin Duncan, an exoneree who spent nearly thirty years behind bars. State Republicans passed a law abolishing his position and merging it with another clerk’s office, claiming it was all about “efficiency.” New Orleans locals saw right through it. They viewed it as a targeted strike. When the New Orleans City Council scheduled a special election to give Duncan a shot at the newly consolidated job, Murrill sent letters warning local officials they could be ousted under state “usurper” laws.
That did not sit well with local prosecutors. “We’re very interested in elected officials in New Orleans not being intimidated,” said special prosecutor Laurie White.
Murrill’s bond was set at a cool $400,000. In response, Governor Landry ordered state police to investigate the grand jury itself, calling the New Orleans justice system a “circus.” The Republican Attorneys General Association also chimed in, defending Murrill’s threatening letters as mere “legal opinions.”
At the heart of this political theater is Duncan. He believes the state targeted him. Despite his name sitting on the National Registry of Exonerations, both Landry and Murrill refuse to acknowledge his innocence. Duncan is no ordinary clerk; he is a former jailhouse lawyer who got a law degree, founded a legal nonprofit, and helped dismantle nonunanimous jury convictions at the U.S. Supreme Court. He served 28 years for a 1981 murder before taking a plea deal in 2011 to secure his immediate release. In 2021, a judge officially vacated his conviction. But to the state’s top Republicans, a deal is a deal, and they still call him a felon. Now, the fight over his job has triggered a constitutional crisis.
