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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.
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A record 274 climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest in a single day this week, as critics warn the world’s tallest peak is becoming dangerously overcrowded with thrill-seekers willing to pay $15,000 for a shot at the top.
The surge shattered the previous Nepali record of 223 climbers set in 2019, Rishi Bhandari, secretary general of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal, told Reuters on Thursday.
“This is the highest number of climbers in a single day so far,” Bhandari said, adding that the final summit total could rise even further as some climbers had not yet officially reported their successful ascents.
Nepal has already issued 494 Everest climbing permits this season, each costing climbers $15,000.
EXTREME TRAVEL DESTINATION TO RESTRICT POPULAR MOUNTAIN ACCESS
Climbers walk in a long queue as they head to the summit of Mount Everest in the Solukhumbu district, Nepal, on May 18, 2026. (Purnima Shrestha/Reuters)
Climbers this year are ascending only from the Nepal side of Everest because China reportedly did not issue permits for expeditions from the Tibetan side.
Nepal has already issued 494 Everest climbing permits this season, each costing climbers $15,000. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
Mountaineering experts have long criticized Nepal for allowing large numbers of climbers on Everest, warning that overcrowding can create life-threatening bottlenecks high on the mountain in Everest’s deadly “death zone,” where oxygen levels plunge to dangerously low levels.
LEGENDARY MOUNTAINEER JIM WHITTAKER, FIRST AMERICAN TO SUMMIT EVEREST, DEAD AT 97
Mountaineers line up as they climb a slope during their ascent to the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal on May 31, 2021. (Lakpa Sherpa/AFP)
Nepal has attempted to respond to safety concerns in recent years by tightening rules and increasing fees for climbers, though some expedition leaders have defended the high number of climbers.
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“If teams carry enough oxygen it is not a big problem,” expedition organizer Lukas Furtenbach of the Austria-based Furtenbach Adventures told the outlet. “We have mountains in the Alps like the Zugspitze where we have 4,000 persons on top per day. So 274 is actually not a big number, considering this mountain is 10 times bigger.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s groundbreaking plan to grant Ukraine “associate membership” in the European Union has received mixed reviews in Brussels, with questions raised about its legality, feasibility and political implications.
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In a letter to his fellow leaders, seen by Euronews, Merz proposes a tailor-made status that would give Ukraine access to decision-making bodies without voting rights or portfolio and to certain EU-funded programmes on a “step-by-step” basis.
He also envisions Kyiv able to request assistance from other member states in the event of armed aggression through Article 42.7 of the EU treaties. This, he argues, would create a “substantial security guarantee” to deter Russia.
“It is now time to boldly move on with Ukraine’s EU integration through innovative solutions as immediate steps forward,” Merz tells his peers.
In Brussels, Merz’s letter drew attention and raised eyebrows amid ongoing efforts to lift Hungary’s veto on Ukraine’s accession by the time the 27 leaders meet in June.
His push was compared to the op-ed that the chancellor wrote last year endorsing the use of Russia’s immobilised assets to finance a so-called reparations loan to Ukraine. The op-ed shocked Brussels, and the audacious project eventually collapsed.
The letter is “a rather hasty statement, and not very well coordinated. The timing is strange, especially since in June we will have good news with the opening of the cluster, so this letter is a bit surprising,” said a diplomat, warning of widespread scepticism.
“We need to do things differently. There is indeed a timeline, with June in view, and there is a method. Things will move forward.”
A second diplomat cast serious doubt on Merz’s assertion that the “associate membership” would not require amending the EU treaties, just strong political will.
“I don’t see how this could work from a legal point of view. You would need to change the treaties for that. Associate members with all institutions by way of political arrangement? I don’t see it,” the diplomat said.
A third diplomat said that in the letter, “some ideas are better than others”, while a fourth noted the real debate among member states was yet to begin.
‘Merit-based’ focus
By contrast, the European Commission, which oversees the accession process, was more positive and welcomed Merz’s proposal as showing a “strong commitment from member states to make enlargement a reality as soon as possible”.
“It is increasingly clear that enlargement is a geostrategic investment in our prosperity, peace, and security. And Ukraine’s accession to the European Union is also fundamentally linked to the security of our union,” Guillaume Mercier, the Commission’s spokesperson for enlargement, said in a statement.
“It is equally important that we deliver on the completion of the Union with all the candidate countries that have been working towards accession for many years.”
Mercier noted that any innovative solution should be underpinned by the “merit-based” logic that is supposed to guide the complex multi-chapter accession process.
Earlier this year, the Commission pitched a “reversed” membership under which Ukraine would become a formal EU member and progressively obtain the tangible benefits that come with it. Capitals largely rebuffed the idea, calling it dangerous and unrealistic.
Merz’s pitch suggests gradual integration to access EU funds and high-level fora, but with formal membership only at the very end of the road.
The German letter comes as the bloc sees a window of opportunity to finally lift the Hungarian veto on Ukraine’s accession, which has left the process paralysed for two years. The new government in Budapest has launched consultations with Kyiv to discuss the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, a politically sensitive issue.
Brussels hopes that enough progress will be made to lift the veto in June and open the first cluster of negotiations with Ukraine, known as fundamentals, with the remaining five clusters unblocked across the remainder of the year.
It remains unclear how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will react to Merz’s letter. Last month, he flat-out rejected any overture for “symbolic” membership.
“Ukraine is defending itself and is definitely defending Europe,” he said. “And it is not defending Europe symbolically – people are really dying.”
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