Days before he was scheduled to take office, Calvin Duncan had filed suit, asking a federal judge to block a new state law that would remove the office voters elected him to serve in.
On Sunday, U.S. District Judge John deGravelles of the Middle District of Louisiana found Senate Bill 256 unconstitutional, allowing Duncan to take office as planned on Monday.
Duncan officially assumes office at midnight.
Duncan’s lawsuit came just before Gov. Jeff Landry signed Senate Bill 256, which merges the Orleans criminal and civil clerk of court offices into one office. The law eliminated the criminal clerk’s office at the end of Sunday, May 3 – one day before Duncan is scheduled to be sworn in.
Duncan asks federal judge to intervene
Duncan argued in his federal filing that lawmakers cannot undo the results of an election by replacing the office after voters already chose who would serve in it.
“The Constitution does not allow officials to subvert the electoral process and deny someone their rightful office,” Duncan’s attorney wrote in the filing.
The suit sought, successfully, to allow Duncan to be sworn in Monday, through a request for a temporary restraining order that would stop the law from taking effect long enough for Duncan to begin serving his term. The request asked that the restraining order stay in effect for at least 14 days.
Duncan’s path to clerk office
Duncan won the November runoff with 68% of the vote to become criminal clerk, after promising voters he would modernize records system and improve access to public court records.
During the campaign, he linked those promises to his own struggle to obtain records while fighting the conviction that kept him in prison for 28 years. That conviction was later vacated, and Duncan was later exonerated.
Under SB 256, Chelsey Napoleon, the current civil clerk for Orleans Parish, would become clerk of court once the offices are merged.
Duncan’s attorneys argue that if the state creates a new combined office, voters, not lawmakers, should decide who serves in it.
“The citizens of Louisiana’s 64 parishes, by its very Constitution, elect their clerks of court in each parish,” Duncan’s attorney wrote in the lawsuit.
That lawsuit contends that Duncan has been singled out by top state officials, including state Attorney General Liz Murrill who has tried to deny him the use of the term “exoneree” and threatened his ability to practice law if he sought state innocence compensation
The filing alleges retaliation, saying Duncan was targeted because of his criticism of wrongful convictions, records failures, and persistent problems inside Louisiana’s criminal legal system.
“I sincerely and honestly believe I’m being targeted,” Duncan told lawmakers in April, according to the complaint.
Supporters of the disputed bill, including author Sen. Jay Morris of West Monroe, say that the consolidation would bring Orleans Parish in line with the rest of Louisiana, where one clerk’s office typically handles both civil and criminal matters,
Opponents argued that the bill’s real aim was to block Duncan from taking office last fall.
In the Senate, lawmakers voted down an amendment proposed by Sen. Royce Duplessis, which would have allowed Duncan to serve his four-yea term, before the offices were merged.
“A sad statement for this committee to send to New Orleans that your vote did not count,” Duncan said during debate over the bill in the Senate Judiciary A Committee.
