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Louisiana GOP races to eliminate an elected office won by an exonerated man

Published

3 weeks ago

April 9, 2026

Louisiana GOP races to eliminate an elected office won by an exonerated man

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A man imprisoned for nearly 30 years before being exonerated won a landmark election in New Orleans promising to fix a judicial system that failed him. Now, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and the GOP-controlled Legislature are racing to eliminate his job before he can be sworn in.

Calvin Duncan won 68% of the vote last November to become the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court after pledging to reform the justice system based on his own experience fighting to access court records while in maximum security prison.

Duncan rebuilt his life, in part by running for and winning the clerk’s office. But Louisiana Senate Republicans on Wednesday voted to scrap Duncan’s new job as part of a broader GOP effort to streamline the judiciary in New Orleans, a Democratic hub with a predominantly Black electorate. The state Legislature is largely Republican and white, and the deeply red state has been leading efforts to gut the Voting Rights Act.

Duncan’s swearing in is scheduled for May 4.

He told The Associated Press he believes he’s being retaliated against by Louisiana officials who have long denied his innocence, even though his name is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.

Republicans say it isn’t personal and defend the effort as a step toward government efficiency.

“The citizens of New Orleans overwhelmingly said: ‘I want to give this person a chance, he can make a difference,’” Duncan, a Democrat, told lawmakers during a March committee hearing. “What this bill does, it says: ‘Thank you but you wasted your time.’ It disenfranchises everybody.”

The wrongful conviction that landed Duncan in prison

The case started with the 1981 murder of 23-year-old David Yeager and landed Duncan in prison for more than 28 years. In 2011, on the eve of a hearing to consider new evidence, prosecutors offered to reduce Duncan’s sentence to time served if he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery. Duncan was freed, but he didn’t give up trying to clear his name.

Finally, in 2021, a judge agreed that he had been unjustly convicted and vacated Duncan’s sentence altogether.

As state attorney general in 2023, Landry opposed Duncan’s petition to be compensated for his wrongful conviction. Duncan withdrew the petition after Landry’s successor, Liz Murrill, threatened to go after Duncan’s law license in the state. When Duncan ran for clerk, Murrill vowed to take “further action” against him if he did not stop calling himself “exonerated.”

Landry and Murrill have pointed to Duncan having accepted the 2011 plea deal for manslaughter and armed robbery.

“The Attorney General made it clear during the election that if I continued to accurately speak about my innocence and exoneration that I would face consequences from her office,” Duncan told The Associated Press. “We are seeing those consequences today as she and the Governor try to undo the will of 68% of voters in New Orleans.”

Murrill said she had “no involvement” in the move to eliminate the office.

Republicans say the current system needs an overhaul

Landry told the AP that eliminating Duncan’s elected office was about improving “government efficiency” and “cleaning up a system in Orleans Parish that has been plagued by dysfunction and corruption for years.”

Proponents of consolidating the criminal clerk of court with the civil clerk of court say the offices are combined in other parishes. Terminating the criminal clerk of court position would save the state an estimated $27,300, according to the office of the legislative auditor, which added that the costs of combining clerks’ offices were “unknown.”

The bill’s Republican author, Sen. Jay Morris, who represents a district in north Louisiana, acknowledged that once Duncan’s elected position is eliminated, the civil clerk of court might struggle to handle the influx of cases. The solution, he says, is to “hire someone.”

Other New Orleans elected judicial officials whose jobs may be eliminated in the future would be allowed to serve out their terms, but not Duncan.

Morris told lawmakers that the goal is to pass the law in time to prevent Duncan from taking office before the start of his four-year term.

The bill, on track to be passed by the GOP-controlled House and approved by Landry, would immediately go into effect with the governor’s signature.

“I have never seen something so barbaric,” Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat representing New Orleans said on the Senate floor. “I understand politics and I know you all are going to vote how you are going to vote. But just know, when we are all done here, history has a record.”

Duncan, 62, was the driving force behind a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended nonunanimous jury convictions. He has also founded a nonprofit dedicated to expanding incarcerated people’s access to the court system. He has said being elected to the clerk’s office was the culmination of his life’s work.

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Cline reported from Baton Rouge.

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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World

Prosecutors say singer D4vd stabbed 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez to death to silence her

Published

2 minutes ago

April 30, 2026

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Prosecutors say singer D4vd stabbed 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez to death to silence her

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Prosecutors said Wednesday that singer D4vd killed 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez by stabbing her multiple times then dismembered her body using chain saws in his garage.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office shared what they said the evidence in the case would show in a court filing that provided the first detailed allegations of the killing and efforts to cut apart Rivas Hernandez’s body and get rid of evidence.

The court filing said D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, met Rivas Hernandez when she was 11, began sexually abusing her when she was 13 and he was 18, and killed her when she threatened to reveal their inappropriate relationship.

“Knowing he had to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened, very soon after her arrival at his home, defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood by while she bled out,” the filing said.

Burke has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other counts. His lawyers have said he is innocent and did not cause Rivas Hernandez’s death.

Her body was found decomposing in a Tesla towed from the Hollywood Hills in September of last year.

Prosecutors said they had obtained text messages that showed their sexual relationship, including child sexual abuse images of her on his phone.

“The messages reveal the victim’s jealousy over defendant’s relationships with other women, as defendant led her to believe they had a future together,” the document says. “She became extremely upset and threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with defendant to end his career and destroy his life.”

The filing said he sent a rideshare car to pick her up on the night of April 23, 2025, from her hometown of Lake Elsinore some 80 miles (129 km) outside of Los Angeles. The two exchanged messages until she arrived at his Hollywood home, after which her phone went silent permanently.

They allege he sent her a late-night message asking where she was in an attempt to cover up the killing.

The court filing is intended to outline the evidence that prosecutors plan to present at a preliminary evidentiary hearing beginning May 26, when a judge will determine whether there is probable cause to go to trial. The defense has not publicly provided its version of events.

The document says Burke bought two chain saws online used them to cut apart her body in an inflatable pool in his garage, where the girl’s DNA was later found.

“Defendant took horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim’s body,” prosecutors said in the brief.

Burke drove to Lake Cachuma in Santa Barbara County about 110 miles (177 kilometers) northwest of his home to get rid of evidence three times, the document alleges. Her passport was found there in January.

On April 24, the day after her death, he gave a radio interview and had a record-release party promoting his debut full-length album, “Withered,” which was released the following day, prosecutors said in the filing.

Prosecutors allege he kept her body in his Tesla, and lied to friends and business associates who asked about the smell.

The body of Rivas Hernandez had so degraded that examiners couldn’t even determine her eye color. She had braces at the time of her death, and a tattoo that read “Shhh ….” on the inside of a finger as well as his name, according to the report. Two fingers were missing — as were parts of her arms and legs.

Prosecutors had not previously described how they believed Rivas Hernandez was killed or given details on their relationship. An autopsy report said she was killed by penetrating wounds.

Prosecutors said the parents of Rivas Hernandez reported her missing from her home in Lake Elsinore in February 2024. After the February report, Riverside County Sheriff’s detectives contacted Burke, but he told them he had only met her once and did not know she was a minor.

After she returned home that February, her parents took away her cellphone but Burke drove to her hometown and paid a friend of Rivas Hernandez $1,000 to give her a phone so they could communicate.

She was reported missing again in April 2024. The document said that year, she spent much of her time at Burke’s home in the Hollywood Hills and traveled with him to Las Vegas, London, and Texas to meet his family.

The defense attorneys asked Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo at a hearing Wednesday to seal the document, but she declined. They had no comment outside court.

Burke was arrested on April 16 and pleaded to first-degree murder, lewd and lascivious acts with a person under 14 and mutilating a dead body. He is eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors said they have not decided whether to seek it.

The singer began making music for YouTube videos he created of the video game Fortnite when he was a teenager.

The songs he wrote and recorded on his phone were a blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. The music made him a phenomenon on TikTok, Instagram, Soundcloud and Spotify, where his top songs, including his 2022 breakthrough “Romantic Homicide,” have more than a billion plays. In 2023, he released two EPs and opened for SZA on tour.

He performed at last year’s Coachella music festival just a few weeks before prosecutors said Rivas Hernandez was killed and his album was released. He was on tour promoting it in September when the body was discovered and his name became publicly attached to the case. It would be seven months before he was arrested.

World

Iran’s $800M oil smuggling scheme uses tankers posing as Iraqi ships to dodge blockade

Published

1 hour ago

April 29, 2026

Press Room

Iran’s 0M oil smuggling scheme uses tankers posing as Iraqi ships to dodge blockade

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Sanctioned tankers disguised as Iraqi vessels are moving hundreds of millions of dollars in Iranian crude as President Donald Trump doubled down on the port blockade to squeeze Tehran’s oil lifeline, according to maritime intelligence.

Windward AI claimed Wednesday that a group of U.S.-sanctioned tankers are falsifying their location data to come off as anchored off Iraq while secretly loading Iranian oil at Iranian ports.

“Among the tankers spoofing their location in the area identified by Windward are four VLCCs (very large crude carriers): Alicia (IMO 9281695), RHN (IMO 9208215), Star Forest (9237632) and Aqua (IMO 9248473), using various flags, including fraudulent registries from Curacao and Malawi,” the firm told Fox News Digital.

“For the four VLCCs, each VLCC can hold about 2 million barrels, so four of them would hold 8 million barrels worth about $800 million at $100 per barrel,” Windward said.

TRUMP CASTS MADURO’S OUSTER AS ‘SMART’ MOVE AS RUSSIA, CHINA ENTER THE FRAY

A cargo ship sails in the Persian Gulf toward the Strait of Hormuz April 22, 2026. (AP Photo)

This came as Trump said Wednesday he will keep Iran under a naval blockade until it agrees to a deal addressing U.S. concerns about its nuclear program.

The U.S. administration has demanded that Iran dismantle its uranium enrichment program, while Tehran maintains that enrichment is a sovereign right and nonnegotiable, leaving little room for compromise.

Windward AI noted a “cluster” of sanctioned tankers spoofing locations and seen to the West of the Strait of Hormuz.

“A cluster of 10 Iran-trading, U.S.-sanctioned tankers is now spoofing its AIS location to falsely appear at anchorages off Basrah, Iraq, as the blockade continues to constrict Iranian ports,” Windward explained.

“The vessels identified by Windward Multi-Source Intelligence are manipulating their signals to create a digital alibi,” the intelligence firm claimed.

“By broadcasting fake destination messages to Iraqi ports, the tankers appear to be in Iraqi waters while covertly sailing to Iran to load sanctioned oil.

US AND UKRAINE TARGET 1,000-VESSEL ‘DARK FLEET’ SMUGGLING SANCTIONED OIL WORLDWIDE

“Once loaded, the vessels re-emerge on AIS to suggest a legitimate Iraqi origin for the cargo.”

The U.S. blockade on Iranian ports began April 13 as part of a broader effort to pressure Iran into renegotiating limits on its nuclear program.

The blockade has unfolded in stages, starting with naval deployments and restricted maritime enforcement to limit Iran’s oil exports and economic activity.

Windward said more than two dozen tankers are confined west of Hormuz as of Wednesday, with the blockade cutting Iranian oil loadings and exports by more than half.

“This deceptive practice is under intensified scrutiny as the vessels are part of a larger group of more than two dozen tankers currently confined west of Hormuz,” the firm said.

“The handysize tanker Paola and Long Range One tanker Adena, both signaling ‘Iraqi owner’ but linked to a sanctioned network.”

TRUMP DECLARES ‘VENEZUELAN REGIME’ A FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION, ORDERS OIL TANKER BLOCKADE

President Donald Trump weighs a potential attack on Iran’s oil hub at Kharg Island amid expert predictions of market chaos. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto)

The firm claimed three medium-range tankers, including Aqualis, Kush and Charminar, and the LPG carrier Royal H (IMO 9155341), which was newly sanctioned in February, are displaying “erratic voyage trails to suggest a loading at the Iraqi port of Khor Al Zubair.”

“The tell-tale spoofing signs, including erratic patterns and fake port signals, highlight the shifting tactics used by the dark fleet as the blockade more than halves Iranian oil loadings and exports,” the firm said.

Meanwhile. Iran’s Mohammad Ghalibaf slammed U.S. policymakers Wednesday, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, over the impact of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

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The parliamentary speaker cited “junk advice” and blamed the Treasury for pushing up oil prices.

“Three days in, no well exploded,” Ghalibaf said in a post shared on X.

Emma Bussey is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Before joining Fox, she worked at The Telegraph with the U.S. overnight team, across desks including foreign, politics, news, sport and culture.