A federal judge on Sunday blocked Louisiana from enforcing a new state law that would have abolished the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court clerk’s office one day before Calvin Duncan was set to assume the post voters elected him to fill.
The ruling clears the way, at least temporarily, for Duncan to take office Monday as Orleans Parish criminal clerk of court. It also marks a sharp legal defeat for Gov. Jeff Landry, Secretary of State Nancy Landry, and Republican lawmakers who rushed through Senate Bill 256, later signed as Act 15, to eliminate Duncan’s position before his term could begin.
U.S. District Judge John deGravelles granted Duncan’s request for a temporary restraining order, finding that Senate Bill 256 is unconstitutional and barring Jeff Landry and Nancy Landry from enforcing it, certifying the Orleans civil clerk as the new parishwide clerk, or issuing a commission for that newly created position. The order lasts 14 days, with a status conference set for Monday afternoon to discuss a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.
In plain English, the judge found that the state cannot wait until voters choose someone, abolish that elected office days before the winner takes power, create a replacement office, and then hand that new office to someone voters never selected for that job.
That was the heart of deGravelles’ ruling.
“The Court is not ruling that the state lacks the authority to abolish an agency or office writ large,” deGravelles wrote. But he found that Louisiana crossed the constitutional line by “abolishing this particular office, creating a new office to replace it, and then appointing someone for that office, all when the Louisiana Constitution requires an election.” In doing so, he wrote, the state violated Duncan’s federally protected rights to due process and to vote.
The ruling is temporary, but it is not a minor procedural hiccup for Landry. Temporary restraining orders are emergency orders meant to prevent immediate harm before a case can be fully litigated. To win one, Duncan had to show, among other things, that he is likely to succeed on the merits, that he faced irreparable harm, and that blocking the law would serve the public interest. DeGravelles found that Duncan met that standard.
Duncan won the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court clerk race in November with 68% of the vote. His campaign was rooted in his own experience with the criminal legal system: he spent more than 28 years in prison before his conviction was vacated, and he argued that better court records and public access could help prevent the kinds of failures that shaped his own life.
Senate Bill 256, authored by Sen. Jay Morris of West Monroe, was presented by supporters as a consolidation bill meant to streamline Orleans Parish’s unusually fragmented court clerk system. The measure merged the criminal and civil clerk functions and would have transferred the criminal clerk’s staff, records, property, and duties to Orleans Civil District Court Clerk Chelsey Richard Napoleon, making her the parishwide clerk of court.
But deGravelles found that the state’s stated interests were “likely, pretextual” and that the record showed “the state has a minimal interest in passing SB 256.” That conclusion was not based on vibes. The ruling walked through the legislative record, including Morris’ admission that the bill lacked supporting studies or data, his statement that an amendment was brought at the governor’s request to pass the bill before Duncan took office, and his acknowledgment that the amendment was designed to ensure Duncan never took office as criminal clerk.
That is the part Landry’s defenders will have the hardest time spinning away. The judge did not simply say the law had bad timing. He pointed to evidence that the timing was the point.
DeGravelles also rejected the state’s argument that this was merely a lawful restructuring of an office. The judge agreed that Louisiana may have authority to abolish or reorganize offices. But once the state created a new clerk position with new title, duties, custody, ownership, employees, and authority, the Constitution’s election requirement mattered. Under Louisiana law, clerks of district court “shall be elected,” and special elections are required to fill newly created offices or vacancies.
That distinction is crucial. The state’s argument was essentially: we are not nullifying an election; we are restructuring government. The judge’s answer was: restructuring government does not give the state permission to bypass voters and install its preferred officeholder.
The court also focused on the rights of Orleans Parish voters, not just Duncan personally. DeGravelles found that the law placed a severe burden on voters who had already participated in a completed election and selected Duncan by a decisive margin. The court said SB 256 was not a neutral, routine election regulation. Instead, it targeted the result of an election and prevented voters from choosing who would hold the new office.
That matters because the constitutional injury here is not just that Duncan would lose a job. It is that voters would be told, after the fact, that their ballots no longer mattered because state officials found a way to erase the office before the winner could serve.
DeGravelles made clear that the public interest favored blocking the law. When a constitutional violation is alleged, courts often treat that harm as irreparable because the injury cannot simply be fixed later with money. The judge found that the public, particularly Orleans Parish voters, has a significant interest in ensuring their votes are not nullified and that they get the opportunity to vote for a newly created clerk of court office.
The ruling does not end the case. The order lasts for 14 days, and the state can continue fighting for the law in federal court. A preliminary injunction, if granted, would block enforcement for a longer period while the lawsuit proceeds. The state could also seek review from the Fifth Circuit, which has often been friendly terrain for Louisiana’s Republican state government.
But for now, the immediate result is clear: Duncan gets to take office, and Landry’s attempt to use Act 15 to keep him from ever serving has been blocked.
The ruling also lands in a broader political context. Landry and Republican lawmakers have spent the current legislative session pushing court restructuring measures aimed heavily at New Orleans. Supporters have framed those efforts as efficiency reforms. Critics have viewed them as another example of Baton Rouge using state power to override Orleans Parish voters, particularly in a majority-Black, heavily Democratic city.
DeGravelles’ ruling does not adopt every claim Duncan made. The court did not resolve the broader retaliation claims, including Duncan’s argument that state officials targeted him because of his public criticism of Louisiana’s criminal legal system. The judge also dismissed Duncan’s right-to-vote claim against Attorney General Liz Murrill without prejudice on sovereign immunity grounds, while allowing the immediate relief against Jeff Landry and Nancy Landry to proceed.
Still, the judge’s core finding is devastating for the state’s defense: Louisiana likely violated federal constitutional protections by nullifying an election, bypassing a required election for a new office, and appointing someone else to do the job voters had chosen Duncan to perform.
For a case wrapped in legal jargon, the democratic principle is simple enough. If the people vote for someone, state officials do not get to change the rules after the election because they dislike the outcome.
On Sunday, a federal judge said as much. And for now, Calvin Duncan gets to walk into the office voters elected him to hold.