Louisiana exoneree Calvin Duncan’s first day as clerk cut short after appeals court intervenes

Calvin Duncan, a Louisiana man whose murder conviction was overturned in 2021 after decades behind bars, walked into the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court clerk’s office Monday morning ready to take the job he won with 68% of the vote. Within hours he was told to stop acting as clerk after a federal appeals court, siding with state officials, froze the court order that had let him assume the post.

Duncan’s election last fall promised a striking political turn — an exoneree who taught himself law in prison and later became a licensed attorney would now oversee the very court system that sent him away. But before his term was set to begin, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and the GOP-controlled state Legislature raced through a bill eliminating the criminal clerk position and transferring its duties to the civil clerk of court. Landry signed the measure into law on Thursday.

On Sunday, U.S. District Judge John deGravelles issued a restraining order that blocked the new law from taking effect, writing that the state’s approach violated Duncan’s constitutional right to due process. “The Court is not ruling that the state lacks the authority to abolish an agency or office writ large,” deGravelles said. He said he was “simply holding” that Louisiana’s method — wiping out an elected office and replacing it with a political appointee — was unconstitutional while the litigation unfolds.

Louisiana officials immediately appealed, contending the order “accomplishes nothing other than threaten chaos.” Early Monday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the state’s request for a stay, putting deGravelles’s order on hold.

Seated inside the clerk’s office before the stay was issued, Duncan told the Associated Press, “I am the clerk of the criminal district court, that will never change.” Later, after the appeals court acted, a spokesperson for Duncan, Emily Ratner, said in a text message that Duncan had “ceased acting” as clerk to comply with the latest ruling. “He has always done his best to comply with the law and he continues to do exactly that during these unprecedented and evolving legal developments,” Ratner added.

Alanah Odoms, director of the ACLU of Louisiana, told reporters that Duncan’s term began at midnight Monday and cannot be cut short under the state constitution. She said the civil rights organization will press that argument before the 5th Circuit and, if necessary, the U.S. Supreme Court. “The state moved too slow,” Odoms said. “We don’t believe that his term can be diminished now.”

The ACLU of Louisiana, joined by other civil rights groups, frames the episode as a deliberate disenfranchisement of voters in New Orleans, a predominantly Black Democratic city in a deeply red state. They note that the Legislature’s move came after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case advanced by Louisiana, dismantled a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, and they warn that Duncan’s case is a preview of a coming wave of minority-voter nullification.

Landry and Republican allies describe the consolidation of the clerk’s offices as a government efficiency measure that aligns Orleans Parish with the rest of the state. The nonpartisan legislative auditor found that eliminating the role would save the state an estimated $27,300 but said long-term costs or savings were unclear. The legislation also shifted about $1.1 million in state expenditures to the parish.

New Orleans leaders said they were never consulted and opposed the changes. In April, Republican lawmakers rejected an amendment that would have let Duncan serve out his term before the criminal clerk position was eliminated.

Chelsea Richard Napoleon, the civil clerk who would take over the criminal clerk’s duties, said she is monitoring the legal battle and her goal is to “adhere to the duties entrusted with me under Louisiana law.”

On Monday morning, with the legal status of the office unsettled, Duncan said he believed he would prevail in the long run. “I’m not just elated but overelated and happy that this day finally came,” he said. “It’s something I’ve been working toward a very long time. This is a testament that God is still in control.”

Duncan added that regardless of the legal turbulence, the office’s employees will continue processing cases and overseeing elections, “no matter who is the clerk.”