A on Monday endorsed Act 15, the new law that merged the two district court clerkβs offices in New Orleans and eliminated the criminal clerkβs post that a former life prisoner, , won last fall.
The court took up a pair of legal challenges lodged in Baton Rouge to the controversial legislation authored by state Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe. A 4-3 court majority upheld the new law and found that city officials overstepped last month when they named an interim clerk to the combined post and called for an election.
βNo provision of the Louisiana or United States Constitution prohibits Act 15 from being immediately effective. By the clear terms of the Act, there is no vacancy in any office,β the court ruled.
The opinion was unsigned. Justices Cade Cole, Jeff Hughes and Jay McCallum along with a fill-in justice, 1st Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Allison Penzato, comprised the majority. Justices John Michael Guidry, Piper Griffin and Chief Justice John Weimer dissented.
The decision made permanent a ruling the court issued earlier as it took up the case, endorsing Chelsey Richard Napoleon, the elected civil clerk who was tapped by the Legislature under Act 15 to run a unified clerkβs office.
Napoleon was one of two people who sued in Baton Rouge state court. She claimed the City Council shouldnβt have appointed retired criminal judge Calvin Johnson as interim clerk and called for a new election. The other lawsuit was filed by Gary Crockett, a U.S. Senate candidate who claimed Act 15 was unconstitutional.
The court adopted both cases in May, citing βthe urgent need to provide a definitive resolution to prevent further confusion.β It aimed to decide the actβs constitutionality, and, if legal, whether it created a vacancy that required the New Orleans City Council to back an election and appoint an interim clerk. Mondayβs ruling permanently barred the city from doing so.
βThe process is not what I would have wanted, but the legislature made this decision,β Napoleon said at a news conference Monday in front of the criminal courthouse. βI have been put in a position to where I was reacting to what was happening.β
Mayor Helena Moreno issued a statement after the court decision.
βWhile I am disappointed in todayβs ruling, we stood up for the voters of Orleans Parish and defended what many believed was their constitutional right to have the results of an election respected,β she said.
βThe Louisiana Supreme Court has now provided final clarity on the legality of Act 15 and the consolidation of the Clerk of Court offices. Importantly, the Court also made clear that the Mayor, District Attorney and 5 Councilmembers did not violate Louisianaβs usurper law as the Attorney General had claimed.β
Moreno, District Attorney Jason Williams and others argued that Act 15 created a new office and that state law required the City Council to call a special election to fill it. The council appointed Johnson as interim clerk over objections from Napoleon and also Attorney General Liz Murrill, who over the move.
Murrill had warned the council that its actions violated Louisianaβs βusurper laws,β which bar public officials from recognizing or supporting an unauthorized officeholder.
City Council President JP Morrell, who was named as a defendant in Napoleonβs suit, said he was βpleasantly surprisedβ at how close the court decision was. Morrell said the opinion showed a court dismissive of Murrillβs threat to punish city leaders.
βAll of them acknowledged the law, how it was written and its timing created confusion,β Morrell said in an interview. βAll parties agreed it was never a crime like the attorney general represented wherever she went.β
In a footnote, the Supreme Court immunized city officials over their moves before Mondayβs ruling, while agreeing with Murrill that the new law didnβt create a new clerkβs office that dictated an election.
"As I stated from the beginning, the Legislature had the constitutional authority to consolidate these offices, and Act 15 clearly transferred all duties and responsibilities to Orleans Parish Clerk of Court Chelsey Richard Napoleon,β Murrill said in a statement. βThe Louisiana Supreme Court got this right.β
Calvin Duncan lawsuit
Duncan, meanwhile, has argued in federal court that the law denying him office violates his civil rights. A federal appeals court stayed a favorable lower court ruling over his legal challenge.
Duncan won the criminal clerkβs seat last year in convincing fashion, taking 68% of the vote over incumbent Darren Lombard.
A prison counsel for two decades at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, he went free in 2011 in an agreement with prosecutors before a judge vacated his conviction in 2021. Duncan ran on a mission to help liberate court records heβd struggled to obtain for his own case and others while locked away.
A history of the New Orleans court
In its opinion Monday, the Supreme Court majority recounted the history of the unique court setup in New Orleans, with separate civil and criminal courts. It said delegates at the Constitutional convention in 1974 held off on a merger but also βaffirmatively rejected attempts to protectβ Orleans judges and clerks from future cuts by a simple majority in the Legislature.
βIn other words, the continued existence of these offices and courts was placed under the express and unconstrained control of the legislature,β the court found, adding that no federal laws were violated by abolishing Duncanβs post, either.
βIn reaching this conclusion, we acknowledge that the timing of the legislation was perhaps unfortunate,β the court said.
In a dissent, Weimer wrote that the move to abolish the criminal clerkβs office days before Duncan was set to assume it βmakes a mockery of the electoral process by completely obliterating the constitutional effectiveness of the peopleβs vote.β
He went on to quote several historical figures on the right to vote, from founding father Thomas Paine to former U.S. presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr..
βThe enactment of Act 15 does not merely terminate a position; it effectively cancels the right to vote and voids an election in which the citizens participated and justifiably believed their votes were counted and would be given effect,β Weimer wrote.
The decision βinvites review by the United States Supreme Court,β Griffin added in her dissent.
βBoth the federal and state constitutional guarantees must include a prohibition against the legislature abolishing an office after votes have been cast and before the term for which those votes were cast has concluded,β Griffin wrote. βOtherwise, the right to vote is not only diluted but is completely nullified.β
Guidry wrote that the decision βamounts to nothing less than condoning a brazen and unconstitutional political coup that subverts the will of the majority of the electorate of Orleans Parish by unceremoniously ousting Calvin Duncan from his duly elected position.β
Emily Faye Ratner, a local civil rights attorney who co-chaired Duncanβs transition team, said the court offered little support for its ruling.
βThis opinion puts us into a new territory about the rights of voters in the state of Louisiana,β Ratner said. She said Duncanβs federal challenge to Act 15 remains βall the way aliveβ in Baton Rouge, where U.S. District Judge John deGravelles initially ruled the law unconstitutional before the appeals court stay.
Duncan expressed disappointment in the outcome as he advocated Monday for recall petitions underway against both Murrill and Gov. Jeff Landry.
βAt a time when our voting rights are under unprecedented attack, this decision clarifies that if we want to live in a democracy, we have to fight for it with every tool our system of government provides,β he said in a statement.
The governor, attorney general βand a legislator from Monroe have substituted their will for that of the people of New Orleans,β Duncan added.
Staff writer Matt Bruce contributed to this story.