A New Orleans candidate’s murder conviction was tossed but the state still challenges his past

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A down-ballot race for New Orleans clerk of criminal court has turned contentious, as candidate Calvin Duncan, who spent three decades in prison before his conviction was vacated, faces attacks from Louisiana’s attorney general and the incumbent clerk over whether he was truly exonerated.

Duncan, 62, taught himself law while in prison and struggled for years access his records. He says that makes his quest to be the city’s chief criminal recordkeeper personal.

“I don’t never want to have what happened to me happen to nobody else,” said Duncan, whose murder conviction was vacated by a judge in 2021. He’s listed in the National Registry of Exonerations alongside figures like “Central Park Five” member Yousef Salaam, now a New York City councilmember.

But Duncan’s campaign has been overshadowed by disputes about the word “exoneration” in his case, injecting drama into the final stretch of an otherwise sleepy municipal race. Voters head to the polls Saturday.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and incumbent clerk Darren Lombard have both denied Duncan’s innocence, pointing to a 2011 plea deal for manslaughter and armed robbery that Duncan says he accepted only to secure his release. In televised debates, media interviews and campaign advertisements, Lombard has called Duncan a murderer.

Duncan, a Democrat, accuses his opponents of trying to mislead voters. Duncan’s supporters say it’s an example of bare-knuckle politics in New Orleans, where more than 10 candidates are also running to replace term-limited Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who pleaded not guilty in September to corruption charges.

Jessica Paredes, executive director of the exoneration registry, said there should be no doubt that Duncan’s case deserves to be listed among the more than 3,700 exonerations tracked since 1989.

“We err conservatively to maintain the integrity of the database,” she said. “Calvin’s exoneration was not one of these close calls. His case clearly meets our inclusion criteria.”

A guilty plea and a vacated conviction

Duncan presented new evidence of his innocence in a 1981 fatal shooting — including that police officers had lied in court — prior to his release from prison. A judge later vacated Duncan’s conviction under a legal statute of “factual innocence” and prosecutors dismissed the charges.

Legal scholars say there is no across-the-board legal standard for exoneration, but Paredes’ group generally defines it as occurring “when a person who has been convicted of a crime is officially cleared after new evidence of innocence becomes available.”

Even before Duncan ran for office, his case drew scrutiny from Murrill, the state’s Republican attorney general. After Duncan earned a law degree in 2023 and sought to obtain $330,000 in state compensation for his wrongful conviction, Murrill threatened to contest his ability to practice law unless he dropped his claim for the money, according to Jacob Weixler, Duncan’s attorney.

Murrill’s spokesperson, Lester Duhe, confirmed that account, saying Duncan “knowingly and intentionally pled guilty to this manslaughter in court.” Duncan dropped his claim to avoid any impediment to practicing law, Weixler said.

Less than two weeks before the election, Murrill escalated the dispute, releasing a public letter accusing Duncan of “gross misrepresentation” for calling himself exonerated. On Monday, dozens of attorneys in Louisiana signed a letter rejecting her claims.

A self-taught lawyer

In the legal community, Duncan had already achieved a degree of celebrity before running for office.

He recalls in his memoir how an older inmate advised him to learn the law to save himself. With only an eighth-grade education, Duncan honed his legal skills and was allowed to help other inmates prepare court documents as part of a prison legal program.

His persistence eventually shaped national law. Duncan was the driving force behind a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended non-unanimous jury convictions in Louisiana and Oregon, the only two states still allowing a practice rooted in the Jim Crow era, said G. Ben Cohen, an attorney in the case.

Duncan said getting a police report, let alone a trial transcript, could take years for inmates. The New Orleans criminal court system still leans heavily on paper records, and thousands of files were lost during Hurricane Katrina. In August, troves of criminal court records were mistakenly thrown away, requiring the clerk’s office to salvage them from a landfill.

Lombard said a new digital filing system will come online this year. He calls his opponent unqualified, while Duncan argues he would bring a unique appreciation for the weight of the office.

“I’ve seen and experienced firsthand when a clerk office does not function properly,” he said.

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Associated Press journalist Stephen Smith contributed to this report. 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.