Weeks after Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill threatened to remove seven New Orleans leaders from elected office, simmering hostilities between the Republican AG and Democratic local leaders are flaring to new heights.
Murrill now faces an Orleans Parish criminal grand jury probe, several sources told The Times-Picayune | The Advocate on Tuesday. The panel is said to be reviewing whether Murrill broke laws in May involving intimidation of public officials, based on when she wrote to Mayor Helena Moreno, District Attorney Jason Williams and other local officials and threatened to remove them from office if they did not walk back calls to elect a new court clerk.
On Wednesday, Louisiana’s top lawyer gave a measured response when asked about the possibility that she might face criminal charges.
“I can't explain why they do things in New Orleans the way they do them, but I would say I'm not surprised,” she said at a press conference called in Baton Rouge to discuss the arrests of people accused of bilking Medicaid programs.
To some longtime courtroom watchers, news of the criminal grand jury investigation seemed to highlight just how far the debate between local and state officials has spiraled off the rails.
“This is an absurd continuation of the silliness between these grown-ups a few months ago,” said Dane. S. Ciolino, a law professor who specializes in ethics at Loyola University.
The battle ratcheted up this spring when Louisiana’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved bills to reshape two typically-sleepy public offices: New Orleans’ clerks of civil and criminal court.
Winding legal, political fight
Supporters cast the legislation, which eliminated the criminal clerkship and placed its duties under the civil clerk’s office, as a needed reform. But New Orleans leaders slammed the move as unnecessary incursion, calling the legislation retaliation against Calvin Duncan, a former prison lawyer who spent decades behind bars before a judge found him innocent of a 1981 murder.
Duncan won the criminal clerkship last fall with 68% of the vote despite opposition from Murrill and other conservatives. The measure took effect four days before he was to assume the office, at which point Williams and Moreno pressed the City Council to call a special election for the newly-melded seats. They argued the legislation had created a new position that must be filled by voters. Murrill fired off her letters threatening to remove them from office.
Democrats and some Republicans alike called the move an overstep, and both sides seemed to calm their rhetoric following that blow-up. On June 1, the Louisiana Supreme Court issued a ruling upholding the state law that cut Duncan’s position. It seemed the fight had ebbed.
Then sources told The Times-Picayune this week that a grand jury was weighing evidence against Murrill, reigniting the tensions.
“The matter was ultimately going to be resolved by the Louisiana Supreme Court, not by absurd cross-accusations of criminal conduct,” Ciolino said.
Many questions remain unanswered about the grand jury’s focus and how far its investigation has progressed. Details such as how many witnesses the panel has called and what evidence it may be considering aren’t clear.
Also unclear is how much criminal exposure Murrill could ultimately face. Her letters to local officials said the five-member City Council majority was helping to “usurp” Clerk of Court Chelsea Napoleon’s authority, citing a statute that makes it a misdemeanor to assume office without authority or to interfere with a public official.
At least some City Council members have been called to testify, sources said.
The council member had “put your own offices in jeopardy,” Murrill wrote. She directed them to “rescind or suspend” the resolutions, alleging they had “opted to aid and abet in the usurpation of the officeholder.”
Some legal veterans are skeptical that a criminal case built around the correspondence would pass muster.
“The public intimidation statute requires a threat of violence or an unlawful demand,” Craig Mordock, a veteran defense lawyer, wrote on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter. “Murrill threatened to enforce a law the LA Supreme Court said she read correctly. If that’s a felony then half the lawyers in this state are looking at hard time.”
Grand juries operate in secrecy
Grand juries, which at the federal and state court levels weigh evidence to decide whether prosecutors have probable cause to criminally indict a defendant, typically meet with the utmost secrecy. But two sources told The Times-Picayune that the probe appears to have been initiated by the grand jury itself, a rare step the panel may take under state law.
Sources also told the newspaper that Williams recused himself from the probe and that former criminal court judge and veteran defense attorney Laurie White is handling the matter as a special prosecutor.
White declined to comment Wednesday on the grand jury investigation, saying only that there was “secrecy” surrounding the matter. She left the bench in 2023 amid a court employee’s sexual harassment complaint, which White denied at the time. A federal judge in 2023 dismissed a lawsuit from the employee.
White also previously represented Duncan in his criminal case before the Innocence Project, now known as Innocence and Justice Louisiana, took it over.
Moreno declined to comment Wednesday on the grand jury proceedings, which Criminal District Judge Leon Roche is overseeing. Williams and several City Council members did not respond to phone calls.
Murrill hinted at reports of interest surrounding the allegations of a grand jury investigation as she opened of press conference Wednesday in Baton Rouge.
“Everyone is here for the sole reason we’re having a press conference on Medicaid fraud, right?” she asked, laughing.
She said she first heard of the grand jury investigation when a reporter contacted her on Tuesday to ask about it. Asked if she had an opinion of White’s reported appointment as a special prosecutor, Murrill said she would hold her tongue.
“I wouldn't speak to it out of respect for the process, however much I may have thoughts about it or disagree with it,” she said. “I won't talk about it until we see what happens. Now, when we see what happens, I can assure you that I do have thoughts, and I will express them.”
Records show retired Judge Calvin Johnson, who the City Council tapped as an interim clerk when it called a special election in May, filed a complaint with the state bar commission against Murrill on June 17.
The document accuses Murrill of “unethical and unprofessional conduct,” naming as examples the letters she sent Johnson, Moreno, Williams and the five council members. In her letter to Johnson at the time, Murrill warned that he could face “imprisonment” even as she said he “appears to be an innocent bystander” to the dispute.
Staff writers John Simerman, Andrea Gallo and Meghan Friedmann contributed to this report.