{"id":739908,"date":"2026-07-03T00:17:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T00:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/739908\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T00:17:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T00:17:17","slug":"louisiana-ag-is-indicted-by-grand-jury-in-fight-over-court-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/739908\/","title":{"rendered":"Louisiana AG is indicted by grand jury in fight over court changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louisiana\u2019s attorney general was indicted Thursday over accusations she threatened the jobs of New Orleans leaders who fought a Republican-led overhaul of local courts<\/a> in the heavily Democratic city.<\/p>\n

The 16-count indictment against Republican Liz Murrill, handed up by a New Orleans grand jury, charges Louisiana\u2019s first female attorney general with intimidation and malfeasance. At the center of the case are deepening rifts between state leaders in Louisiana, which is heavily Republican, and Democrats who control the state\u2019s most prominent city.<\/p>\n

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry promised a swift pardon, saying Murrill would not have her reputation tarnished by an \u201cOrleans Kangaroo court.\u201d Mayor Helena Moreno, a Democrat, was among those who had accused the state\u2019s top law enforcement official in May of making threats against public officials.<\/p>\n

The assistant district attorney handling the case, Laurie White, is a retired Orleans Parish criminal court judge appointed as a special prosecutor, and she said she expects the case to be \u201cvery simple\u201d and \u201cvery open and shut.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to Landry\u2019s promise to pardon Murrill, she said, \u201cLet\u2019s get her convicted, and then he can pardon her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Landry, Murrill and GOP legislators have been sparring publicly for months with New Orleans officials over the local elected office won last year by a man who spent nearly three decades in prison for a wrongful conviction. <\/p>\n

At Landry\u2019s urging, legislators enacted a law to eliminate that job, Orleans Parish criminal court clerk, and give its duties to the civil court clerk. That kept the elected eping the criminal court clerk, Calvin Duncan, from taking office in May. Murrill and Landry have long refused to acknowledge his innocence, though he\u2019s listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.<\/p>\n

Murrill says she won\u2019t back down<\/p>\n

Bond for Murrill was set at $400,000 on Thursday, according to court records. Landry slammed the indictment in a social media post on Thursday, promising to pardon Murrill \u201cas fast as the law allows.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe criminal justice system is a circus at its finest in Orleans and we will not have any of that!\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

The Republican Attorneys General Association said that in making statements to local officials \u2014 in writing \u2014 was simply \u201cissuing a legal opinion and warning public officials about the law\u201d as part of her official duties. It called the indictment \u201cas outrageous as it is dangerous.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Local officials had a swearing-in ceremony<\/a> for Duncan on the steps of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court two weeks before he was to take office \u2014 while lawmakers still were considering the measure to eliminate his job, combining its duties with those of the civil court clerk. <\/p>\n

Then, in May, the City Council sought to oust the civil court clerk and set a special election for November to fill the combined job \u2014 and give Duncan a chance to claim it. That prompted Murrill to warn local officials that they could lose their offices for violating state \u201cusurper\u201d laws, which forbid support for an unauthorized officeholder.<\/p>\n

\u201cLouisiana\u2019s usurper laws carry serious consequences, and I will enforce them,\u201d Murrill wrote in a May statement when her office publicized the letters.<\/p>\n

Murrill called the case against her \u201cretaliatory, meritless, and unconstitutional,\u201d in a Thursday evening post on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will not back down. I will continue enforcing the law, fighting corruption, and doing the job the people of Louisiana elected me to do\u201d she wrote, saying that she would file an emergency appeal with the Louisiana Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Local officials see statements as intimidation<\/p>\n

Moreno, who was among the officials that Murrill said could be ousted, said indictment is \u201ca matter for the courts\u201d and did not directly address the allegations against Murrill.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy focus, as always, remains on fulfilling the responsibilities the people of New Orleans elected me to carry out,\u201d Moreno said. <\/p>\n

Moreno and the five city council members who received the letters swiftly rebuked the attorney general\u2019s guidance in videos posted on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is surprising that the attorney general put all of this in a letter considering that there is a criminal law\u201d that prohibits intimidation, Moreno said in an Instagram video at the time.<\/p>\n

White told reporters after the indictment: \u201cWe\u2019re very interested in elected officials in New Orleans not being intimidated or threatened by letter or any other way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who backed the law eliminating Duncan\u2019s elected position argue that it promotes government efficiency and tries to improve a dysfunctional court system in Orleans Parish. They also said the offices of criminal and civil clerks of courts are combined in other parishes. <\/p>\n

Man denied clerkship says state targeted him<\/p>\n

Duncan has said he believes state officials were retaliating against him in eliminating the job he won<\/a> with 68% of the vote. <\/p>\n

Duncan was a jailhouse lawyer who later graduated from law school. He founded a nonprofit dedicated to expanding incarcerated people\u2019s access to the court system and was the driving force behind a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended nonunanimous jury convictions<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He sought compensation from the state over his imprisonment but withdrew his petition after Murrill threatened to go after his law license because he referred to himself as exonerated. She also demanded during his campaign<\/a> that he stop describing himself that way or face \u201cfurther action.\u201d <\/p>\n

Duncan spent more than 28 years in prison over a fatal shooting during a robbery in 1981. <\/p>\n

The night before a 2011 hearing to consider new evidence, prosecutors offered to reduce Duncan\u2019s sentence to the time he\u2019d already served in prison if he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery. Duncan took the deal and was freed but didn\u2019t give up on clearing his name. <\/p>\n

In 2021, a judge agreed that Duncan had been unjustly convicted and vacated his sentence altogether. Landry and Murrill have pointed to the 2011 plea deal in objecting to Duncan calling himself exonerated. <\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014 <\/p>\n

Associated Press reporter Jack Brook contributed from New Orleans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Louisiana\u2019s attorney general was indicted Thursday over accusations she threatened the jobs of New Orleans leaders who fought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,318122,2302,793,123501,3073,16226,18320,9597,95119,6098,6099,3,795,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-739908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-calvin-duncan","tag-courts","tag-general-news","tag-helena-moreno","tag-indictments","tag-jeff-landry","tag-juries","tag-la-state-wire","tag-liz-murrill","tag-louisiana","tag-new-orleans","tag-news","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}