SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
A Louisiana man who spent over 28 years wrongfully incarcerated recently won an election to be New Orleans' next clerk of criminal court. But the Republican state legislature eliminated his position before he could take office on Monday. From New Orleans, Eve Abrams reports on the rush to revamp New Orleans courts.
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Calvin. Calvin. Calvin.
EVE ABRAMS: On November 15, 2025, election night, an exuberant crowd gathered to celebrate Calvin Duncan, Orleans Parish's newly elected clerk. Duncan trounced the incumbent, pulling in nearly 70% of the vote. He was supposed to take office May 4. At his recent swearing-in, Duncan said this culminated decades of struggle.
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CALVIN DUNCAN: My journey pretty much started in 1982, when I actually got arrested and brought back to New Orleans to stand trial.
ABRAMS: For murder, a murder Duncan knew nothing about. He was 19. While in jail awaiting trial, he began studying law, which would become a lifelong passion. Duncan was found guilty and sentenced to life at Angola State Penitentiary.
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DUNCAN: I applied for the job as being a jailhouse lawyer. And one of the problems that we had, we was entitled to get access to our records, not to fight our case, but to see what was going on. And I couldn't get records.
ABRAMS: Duncan dreamed of changing the system by becoming clerk of court to help people get their records. Duncan was finally released in 2011, with the help of the Innocence Project New Orleans. He was later exonerated. In 2023, he earned a law degree. He finally felt qualified to run for his dream job, clerk of criminal court, who is also in charge of elections. But earlier this spring, Republican state Senator Jay Morris introduced bills to revamp New Orleans courts. They eliminate several judgeships and combine New Orleans' civil clerk of court and its criminal clerk of court, eliminating Duncan's position. Here's Morris introducing his bill.
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JAY MORRIS: As I think most of you know by now, Orleans Parish is the only parish in the state that has two clerks of court. Everybody else has one.
ABRAMS: Morris says his bill is about efficiency, but New Orleans has had two clerks for nearly a hundred and fifty years. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat representing New Orleans, says the bills are meant to assert control over the Democratic city and keep Duncan from taking office. He questioned Morris' motive.
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ROYCE DUPLESSIS: If we needed to consolidate the offices so bad, why wasn't this bill brought last year?
MORRIS: Well, I don't know. I didn't think about bringing it last year. And this is in the governor's package.
ABRAMS: The governor's package, meaning Governor Jeff Landry, also a Republican, wanted the bills. Morris says he has nothing personal against Duncan. For his part, Duncan says he'll seek election again whenever he has the opportunity.
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DUNCAN: I'm going to always run for the office that's going to be responsible for making sure that records in criminal cases and evidence in criminal cases are properly stored and preserved. They can name it whatever they want. I'm going to be there to make sure that what happened to me never happen to nobody else.
ABRAMS: Duncan has filed a federal lawsuit against the governor, saying the new law that keeps him from taking office is unconstitutional.
For NPR News, I'm Eve Abrams in New Orleans.
(SOUNDBITE OF WILLIAM TYLER'S "KINGDOM OF JONES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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