A man imprisoned for nearly 30 years before being exonerated won a landmark election in New Orleans promising to fix a judicial system that failed him. Now, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and the GOP-controlled Legislature are racing to eliminate his job before he can be sworn in, the AP reports. Calvin Duncan won 68% of the vote last November to become the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court after pledging to reform the justice system based on his own experience fighting to access court records while in a maximum security prison.
- Duncan rebuilt his life, in part by running for and winning the clerk's office. But Louisiana Senate Republicans on Wednesday voted to scrap Duncan's new job as part of a broader GOP effort to streamline the judiciary in New Orleans, a Democratic hub with a predominantly Black electorate. The state Legislature is largely Republican and white, and the deeply red state has been leading efforts to gut the Voting Rights Act.
Duncan's swearing-in is scheduled for May 4. He told the AP he believes he's being retaliated against by Louisiana officials who have long denied his innocence, even though his name is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations. Republicans say it isn't personal and defend the effort as a step toward government efficiency. "The citizens of New Orleans overwhelmingly said: 'I want to give this person a chance, he can make a difference,'" Duncan, a Democrat, told lawmakers during a March committee hearing. "What this bill does, it says: 'Thank you but you wasted your time.' It disenfranchises everybody."
- "It's a slap in the face not only to the people who elected me, but to every voter across Louisiana," Duncan said in a statement last week, per WWL-TV. "I have been fighting for our rights my entire life, and I won't quit until I've done the job the people elected me to do."
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry told the AP that eliminating Duncan's elected office was about improving "government efficiency" and "cleaning up a system in Orleans Parish that has been plagued by dysfunction and corruption for years." Proponents of consolidating the criminal clerk of court with the civil clerk of court say the offices are combined in other parishes. Terminating the criminal clerk of court position would save the state an estimated $27,300, according to the office of the legislative auditor, which added that the costs of combining clerks' offices were "unknown."
- The bill's Republican author, Sen. Jay Morris, who represents a district in north Louisiana, acknowledged that once Duncan's elected position is eliminated, the civil clerk of court might struggle to handle the influx of cases. The solution, he says, is to "hire someone."
- Other New Orleans elected judicial officials whose jobs may be eliminated in the future would be allowed to serve out their terms, but not Duncan. Morris told lawmakers that the goal is to pass the law in time to prevent Duncan from taking office before the start of his four-year term. The bill, on track to be passed by the GOP-controlled House and approved by Landry, would immediately go into effect with the governor's signature.
- "I have never seen something so barbaric," Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat representing New Orleans, said on the Senate floor. "I understand politics and I know you all are going to vote how you are going to vote. But just know, when we are all done here, history has a record." Duplessis proposed an amendment that would delay the merger until the end of Duncan's term, but it was voted down, the Lens reports.
- Duncan, 62, was the driving force behind a 2020 US Supreme Court decision that ended nonunanimous jury convictions. He has also founded a nonprofit dedicated to expanding incarcerated people's access to the court system. He has said being elected to the clerk's office was the culmination of his life's work.
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