Louisiana Republicans Eliminate Elected Office Won by Exonerated Ex-Prisoner
In November 2025, Calvin Duncan won 68% of the vote in an election to become the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court. But just days before Duncan was scheduled to take office, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) and the Republican-controlled legislature moved to successfully eliminate his role.
Duncan, a sixty-two-year-old man who was sentenced to life without parole at Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as “Angola”) for a 1981 murder, was released in 2011 after 28 years behind bars. Duncan maintains his innocence and was fully exonerated by a judge in 2021. While locked up, Duncan became a talented jailhouse lawyer, and later earned a law degree. As PLN reported, he had campaigned to improve the office based on his own experience fighting to gain access to court records. [See: PLN, Jan. 2026, p. 21].
A Republican-backed bill shrinking the court system in New Orleans, a majority-Black, Democratic city, was signed into law by Gov. Landry on April 30, less than five days before Duncan would have officially assumed office. The bill, or Act 15 (SB256), consolidated New Orleans’ criminal and civil clerks, taking away Duncan’s role as the criminal court while leaving the civil clerk in charge of both offices.
On May 3, several days after Act 15 was enacted, U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled that the law was unconstitutional as it replaced an elected official with a political appointee. Duncan proceeded to show up for his first day on the job, May 4, as Louisiana appealed deGravelles’ decision. Overnight, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted a stay. On June 1, in a 4-3 decision, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld Act 15. All four of the Court’s Republican justices voted in favor.
The Court’s Chief Justice John Weimer, who does not have a party affiliation, wrote in his dissent, “The action by the Legislature to abolish a public office before the person elected to that office can assume the duties of the office makes a mockery of the electoral process by completely obliterating the constitutional effectiveness of the people’s vote.”
Sources: Associated Press, Louisiana Illuminator
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