{"id":3199,"date":"2026-07-03T15:36:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T15:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3199"},"modified":"2026-07-03T15:36:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T15:36:01","slug":"a-grand-jury-indicts-louisianas-attorney-general-in-a-fight-over-changes-to-new-orleans-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3199","title":{"rendered":"A grand jury indicts Louisiana\u2019s attorney general in a fight over changes to New Orleans courts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>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 in the heavily Democratic city.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>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<div><\/div>\n<p>Murrill called the case against her \u201cretaliatory, meritless, and unconstitutional.\u201d Late Thursday, Murrill said she had filed for an emergency stay with the Louisiana Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>\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 on X.<\/p>\n<p>For months, political tensions intensified between Louisiana Republicans and New Orleans officials over a new law that abolished a court clerk office won by an exoneree, Calvin Duncan, who spent nearly three decades in prison. The change consolidated that job with another clerk\u2019s office, which Republican supporters said would make the local judicial system more efficient.<\/p>\n<p>The change was staunchly opposed by New Orleans leaders, and in May, the city council set a special election that would have given Duncan a chance to win the newly combined job. Murrill responded by warning local officials in letters that they could lose their offices for violating state \u201cusurper\u201d laws, which forbid support for an unauthorized officeholder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re very interested in elected officials in New Orleans not being intimidated or threatened by letter or any other way,\u201d special prosecutor Laurie White told reporters.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bond set for Louisiana attorney general<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bond for Murrill was set at $400,000 on Thursday, according to court records.<\/p>\n<p>Landry said he was ordering state police to investigate what he called \u201calleged improprieties\u201d of the grand jury and those who ran it.<\/p>\n<p>\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<p>The Republican Attorneys General Association said that 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<p>Moreno, who was elected in January and was defiant after Murrill sent the letters, on Thursday called it a \u201cmatter for the courts\u201d and did not directly address the allegations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy focus, as always, remains on fulfilling the responsibilities the people of New Orleans elected me to carry out,\u201d Moreno said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Elected clerk says state targeted him<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Duncan has said he believes state officials were retaliating against him in eliminating the job he won with 68% of the vote. Murrill and Landry have long refused to acknowledge his innocence, though he\u2019s listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans have said the change was not personal and supporters have noted that the offices of criminal and civil clerks of courts are combined in other parishes.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Duncan spent more than 28 years in prison over a fatal shooting during a robbery in 1981.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>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<p>Associated Press reporter Jack Brook in New Orleans contributed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3193\">Iran prepares for dayslong funeral for late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in war<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3195\">Venezuelans are rushing to identify the bodies of their loved ones as earthquake deaths multiply<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3197\">Finding freedom from the heat on July 4th will be a challenge in eastern US<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 in the heavily Democratic city. 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[5145,5146,5147,5148,5149],"class_list":["post-3199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","tag-calvin-duncan","tag-jeff-landry","tag-laura-rodrigue-cannizzaro","tag-laurie-white","tag-liz-murrill"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A grand jury indicts Louisiana\u2019s attorney general in a fight over changes to New Orleans courts - Denver Moving Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=3199\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A grand jury indicts Louisiana\u2019s attorney general in a fight over changes to New Orleans courts - Denver Moving Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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 in the heavily Democratic city. 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. 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