A candidate for clerk of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court who won a November election with 68% of the vote did not take office this month as a result of court actions leaving in place a new state law that eliminated the elected office.
Calvin Duncan, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 28 years and became an attorney and reform advocate, did not assume his post on May 4 as a result of federal and state court decisions. The litigation involved challenges to a bill signed into law April 30 by Gov. Jeff Landry that eliminated the criminal clerk position and assigned its duties to the clerk of the Civil District Court, Chelsey Napoleon.
This week Napoleon filed a lawsuit against New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno and the City Council president after the council called for a special election for the expanded clerk position held by Napoleon. The New Orleans council and mayor passed an ordinance to remove Napoleon and install an interim clerk, former judge Calvin Johnson.
Those actions took place despite state Attorney General Liz Murrill sending a May 8 letter to the council rejecting the notion that the city should appoint an interim clerk.
“If the council … attempts to install an ‘interim clerk’ and additionally to call an illegal election, I will certainly be required to act pursuant to (Louisiana Revised Statutes) 42:76 to prevent the council and its purported appointee from interfering with the lawful officeholder’s exercise of her duties,” Murrill wrote.
Litigation is also moving to resolve the dispute over Duncan’s status and the legality of the state law that eliminated the criminal court clerk position. Earlier this month, the federal court in the Middle District of Louisiana found that the law, Act 15, was unconstitutional and granted a restraining order barring the law from taking effect. But that decision was quickly followed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granting Landry’s request for an immediate administrative stay of the district court order.
The ACLU of Louisiana, which represents Duncan in his lawsuit, stressed that the federal appeals court did not rule on the merits of the case.
“That is the administrative stay,” the ACLU of Louisiana said of the appeals court’s action in an email to the Louisiana Record. “The case is stayed administratively at the Fifth Circuit, but there has been no further action since the stay was granted.”
In her letter to the City Council, Murrill said a parallel case filed in the 19th Judicial District Court would settle the matter. On Sunday, the Louisiana Supreme Court stayed a decision by the district court to bar the state from merging the two clerk offices in Orleans Parish.
“The stay confirms what the state has maintained from the beginning: The case was unlikely to succeed on the merits,” Murrill’s office said in a statement. “The state anticipates the Louisiana Supreme Court will ultimately issue an opinion confirming that conclusion. In the meantime, the court’s order preserves the status quo while the legal issues presented in the case are fully considered.”
Murrill said she was requesting the state’s high court to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible.
Landry praised the federal appeals court’s decision in a post on X, formerly Twitter, last week.
“The Fifth Circuit has now granted an administrative stay on the misguided district order … which served no purpose other than to create chaos and confusion,” he said. “This means the law to consolidate the clerks of court is in effect.”
Last week, the ACLU of Louisiana executive director, Alanah Odoms, said the state Legislature’s move to eliminate Duncan’s elected post was a “targeted dismantling of Black political power through the machinery of law.”
