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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.
It has been an interesting year and a half for the relationship between Canada and the United States, two countries marking birthdays this week. Canada turned 159 on Wednesday, and America is 250 on Saturday. It got us thinking about how much Americans really know about Canada.
Take our quiz and find out. To our American friends, because it’s your birthday we made it a little bit about you. And if you find it difficult, we’re sorry. Let’s start with an easy one.
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Keiko Fujimori, the conservative politician and daughter of the former president, was declared the winner Friday of Peru’s presidential runoff election.
Fujimori, 51, will take office later this month as Peru’s ninth president in 10 years. This was her fourth bid for the position following years of political instability in the country.
Fujimori thanked her supporters in a post on X announcing the conclusion of the election.
STATE DEPARTMENT CONGRATULATES KEIKO FUJIMORI AS PERU’S PRESIDENT-ELECT FOLLOWING RAZOR-THIN VOTE COUNT
Peru’s conservative Keiko Fujimori addresses the media at her party’s Popular Force headquarters. On Friday, she was declared the winner in the country’s presidential runoff. (Reuters)
“I receive with profound gratitude the trust that millions of Peruvians have placed in me. A new stage begins. We assume it with responsibility, humility, and a deep sense of duty,” she wrote. “Each day of this transition process is an opportunity to listen, engage in dialogue, and arrive prepared at the start of the new government. Through these accounts, we will share the progress of this stage and the work we have been carrying out. I invite you to join us.”
The Plenary of the National Elections Jury on Friday proclaimed Keiko Fujimori the winner of the presidential runoff after the June 7 election in Lima, Peru. (Reuters)
Peru’s top election authority certified the results Friday. Fujimori received 9,223,000 votes, or 50.14% of the total, while nationalist Congressman Roberto Sánchez earned over 9,173,000 votes, or 49.87%, The Associated Press reported.
Fujimori made it to the runoff after defeating 33 other candidates in April.
TRUMP ADMIN BACKS BOLIVIA STATE OF EMERGENCY AS LEFTIST EX-LEADER’S LOYALISTS FRACTURE NATION
Supporters of Keiko Fujimori of the Fuerza Popular party shout slogans outside the Lima Convention Center ahead of her debate with Roberto Sánchez in Lima May 31, 2026. (Connie France/AFP via Getty Images)
Her election came amid concerns from voters about surging crime, especially extortion by violent organized crime gangs. Fujimori has pledged to act tough on crime with an “iron fist.”
She is the daughter of the late Alberto Fujimori, the former president whose government in the 1990s defeated the Shining Path extremist rebel group but also took an authoritarian turn.
He was convicted in 2009 of human rights abuses in the fight against the rebels and, later on, corruption charges. His legacy within Peru remains deeply divisive.
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori waves at his home in Santiago after leaving the academy for the training of corrections officers in Santiago, Chile, May 18, 2006. (AP Photo/Claudio Santana, File)
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On Tuesday, the State Department congratulated the younger Fujimori.
“The Trump administration looks forward to deepening collaboration with the Fujimori administration to advance security cooperation and to strengthen bilateral cooperation on investment and trade in our region,” the statement read.
Dozens of diamonds spell out two giant letter “T” next to the Stars and Stripes and “1776” and “2026.”
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Dozens more frame the numbers 45 and 47 in the shape of Superman’s logo.
A diamond-winged eagle carries a ruby shield and clutches an olive branch of emeralds, below a radiant “250” and atop the phrase “250 YEARS USA” etched in 18-karat gold.
All told, 321 diamonds, 56 sapphires, 13 emeralds and six rubies encrust the watch-sized gold ring presented this week to Bill White, the US ambassador to Belgium, to give to President Donald Trump.
“A very special thank you to my friends from Antwerp for the magnificent Freedom 250 ring,” Trump said in a prerecorded video message during an event marking America’s 250th birthday in Brussels.
Isidore Mörsel, president of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) gifted the ring on behalf of the centuries-old diamond community in the Belgian port city, a central hub in the worldwide trade of the precious stones that found itself struggling last year under the weight of Trump’s sweeping trade war.
“May this ring serve as a lasting reminder that true partnership like the finest natural diamonds are formed under pressure, endure the test of time, and shine brightest when built on trust,” Mörsel said.
The ring’s interior is engraved with the phrase “Crafted in Antwerp for Donald John Trump.”
In dollar terms, the ring’s value pales beside gifts like the $400 million (€349 million) plane donated by Qatar that Trump ordered converted into a new Air Force One.
But it’s a glitzy window into the role that ostentatious, and almost always gilded, gifts are playing by those seeking to curry favour with the US president.
A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, said Thursday that the ring has not been presented to Trump yet.
Latest break with White House custom
The gift comes months after Belgium’s diamond industry won the removal of US tariffs on diamond imports.
In September, AWDC said it had “succeeded in securing a zero percent import tariff” on Antwerp’s annual export of more than $2 billion (€1.7 billion) of polished diamonds to the US.
A spokesperson for the group said on Thursday that the AWDC provided “input” to the European Commission as it negotiated with Trump on a broad deal on tariffs in 2025, but did not itself lobby the administration.
US presidents have considerable discretion to accept gifts from domestic and foreign sources and may determine themselves whether a gift was meant for them personally or the nation.
The exception is those from foreign governments, which are prohibited by the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution without congressional assent, though presidents could use personal funds to reimburse the Treasury for the full value of an official gift if they wish to retain them.
Personal gifts are also supposed to be registered on the president’s annual financial disclosure.
Trump’s 2025 disclosure, released this week, revealed a $250,000 (€218,000) gift of a sculpture depicting his triumphal gesture after surviving a 2024 assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and tickets to 10 sporting events, including 10 to the upcoming World Cup final in New Jersey from FIFA’s Gianni Infantino, valued at a collective $15,000 (€13,000).
Four US ethics experts told the Associated Press news agency that Trump has broken with decades-old custom in the White House to avoid accepting such gifts.
Ring’s value estimated at $25,000-35,000
To forge the ring, the AWDC turned to David Gotlib, an Antwerp-based high-end jeweller whose cufflinks can sell for more than €15,000.
Neither AWDC nor Gotlib would provide a valuation of the ring, but two independent jewellers told AP they estimated the value between $25,000-35,000 (€21,000-30,000).
After the ring was presented on a star-spangled stage in Brussels, musician Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel, sang the US national anthem to more than 8,000 people drinking Budweiser and bourbon from Tennessee and Kentucky.
White said he raised more than $5.5 million (€4.8 million) for the 250th anniversary event from corporate sponsors like defence industry titans Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, tech firms like Intel, Google and Meta, as well as the European chocolate companies Leonidas and Ferrero. AWDC said it contributed funds, too.
“The media was asking, ‘Why does it have to be so big?’” White said of the event. “Because we are the United States of America!”
Meanwhile, the fate of the ring is not clear.
On Wednesday, White posted a photo online of himself wearing the ring and giving a thumbs-up. The post has since been deleted.
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