New Orleans interim court clerk blocked by La. Supreme Court while lawsuit unfolds

The Louisiana Supreme Court has stopped New Orleans’ interim appointee for its newly unified clerk of court’s office while legal challenges proceed over whether state officials can remove the person elected to the post before it was combined.

In the meantime, an order Chief Justice John Weimer issued Thursday allows Chelsea Richard Napoleon, previously the clerk of Orleans Civil District Court, to lead the joint office. A new state law, with Gov. Jeff Landry’s backing, put her in that role after it eliminated the Criminal District Court clerk’s job that Calvin Duncan won in a landslide election in November.

Napoleon is suing city officials after they installed retired Judge Calvin Johnson as interim court clerk. Weimer’s order gave the Supreme Court jurisdiction over that case as well as the lawsuit Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Gary Crockett filed against the governor after he suspended Louisiana’s congressional races.

The high court’s order was issued after the New Orleans City Council voted Monday to temporarily make Johnson interim clerk and set a Nov. 3 election date to for voters to fill the position. Council President JP Morrell said an election was necessary because the new law that ousted Duncan created a new elected position. A separate statute requires the local governing authority to call for an election within 20 days of the office being created, which Morrell said the city would have violated had it taken no action.

The council’s moves, which Mayor Helena Moreno and District Attorney Jason Williams endorsed, led state Attorney General Liz Murrill to threaten to remove them from office, along with the five council members who voted to place an interim clerk and set an election date. In a letter to the officials, Murrill said the governor has the authority to appoint replacements for all of them. 

The attorney general also warned Johnson, one of the most respected figures in the city’s legal community, that he could be imprisoned if he carried out the clerk’s duties. 

In a statement, Moreno said the Supreme Court’s order validates city officials’ position that a legitimate legal dispute exists.

“These questions should be resolved in the courts,” Moreno wrote. “The future of the Clerk’s office in New Orleans should not be decided by political pressure or threats, but through the legal process.”

The dispute between state and local leaders has unfolded in the lead-up to Saturday’s election, which includes semi-closed party primaries for U.S. Senate, two positions on Public Service Commission and single seats on the Louisiana Supreme Court and state school board.

The Orleans clerk of criminal court oversees elections in New Orleans, and that duty now falls to Napoleon.

Duncan has sued the state in federal court, arguing the new law violates his civil rights. He alleges Landry and Murrill conspired with state lawmakers to prevent him from taking over as clerk in retaliation for his years of criticism against the state’s criminal justice system.

Those critiques from Duncan stem from his wrongful conviction for a 1981 murder. He was sentenced to life at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola and served nearly three decades before pleading to a lesser charge and gaining his release in 2011. A judge vacated his conviction in 2021.

A federal judge ruled in Duncan’s favor last month. However, just hours before his first day on the job, the state was able to get a procedural order from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeal that forced Duncan out of his office shortly after he arrived for work May 4.

Lawyers for Duncan have said they are prepared to take his case before the U.S. Supreme Court.