Dirty Politics? Exonerated Man Wins Election But La. Governor Won’t Let Him Serve

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Saturday, May second, and it was one of my favorite feel good stories of the year last year, and this morning it feels like crap because a man who, against all odds, was exonerated after being convicted of murder, got out of prison and won an election, and he's supposed to take office on Monday, but the governor just eliminated the position altogether. With that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ I said, it was a story we felt good about, bro, this was one you were over the moon about. Mister Calvin Duncan in New Orleans.

00:00:38
Speaker 2: I have chills when you just say his name, Calvin Duncan, and when you see his smiling face when he victoriously and overwhelmingly won the office of court Clerk for New Orleans and against all odds to join his face. After all, this man has overcome being wrongfully convicted of murder, spent twenty eight years behind bars, got out, put himself through law school, got his law degree at sixty. He's there to serve and to give back because he's been pointing out that the legal system, the judicial system, specifically there in Louisiana and in New Orleans has been unfair to black and brown people incarcerated. They haven't had access to their court records, to their court documents.

00:01:22
Speaker 3: What he fought so hard to get so that he could free himself.

00:01:25
Speaker 2: Now he was going to be the man in charge overseeing that whole operation to set it right.

00:01:31
Speaker 1: Kind of an awesome story.

00:01:32
Speaker 3: It was beautiful, full circle.

00:01:35
Speaker 2: Now he's going to lead the organization that he had such a hard time accessing to free himself, to now make it better for other inmates and for other wrongfully accused folks.

00:01:47
Speaker 1: You cannot think of anybody more perfectly qualified to do the role that he was about to do. And the role of clerk is not one that gets a lot of attention, But Robes has got attention, Yes, because of what you just mentioned, because of his background. Because of his background, Robes he wasn't supposed to have a chance to win. And the reason he ended up winning Robes is because they tried to throw something in his face that backfired. In particular in New Orleans, he had been exonerated. His opponent during the race tried to make a big deal about, well, you weren't really exonerated, and that's when New Orleans started paying attention.

00:02:26
Speaker 2: Correct, because the incumbent was pointing to the fact that Duncan had agreed to a guilty plea for a lesser charge, which made sure that he could be released from prison. He did that to get out of prison. But once he get out of prison, he then set out on a journey to fully exonerate himself, and that is what he did. He had to plead guilty to get out. When he got out, he got that thrown out because a judge found him factually innocent. He is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations. That is an independent organization that is maintained by scholars. So he has been exonerate. So for his incumbent to try and act as though he really did do something, people did not like that.

00:03:10
Speaker 3: Voters rallied around him.

00:03:12
Speaker 1: They didn't like it because they are voters in New Orleans, which is notorious for this stuff. Sorry love y'all in New Orleans, but you all know better than anybody. It has one of the highest rates of wrongful convictions in the country period. So they this incumbent starts attacking this guy in that community where there are plenty of people, if not the criminal themselves or the alleged criminal. They had family members that everybody has been touched in New Orleans by a wrongful conviction or being screwed over by the man or by police. And so when they attacked him for this, his popularity shot through the roof, Roads and here he comes.

00:03:53
Speaker 2: I love it. Yeah. The incumbent's named Darren Lombard, and he thought he could he could just swap this guy away, and it blew up in his face. I love it because he did that. All the attention then got focused on Duncan Lombard. Sorry, yes, and he then got forced into a runoff. Now he's in a runoff with him, and it was Darren Lombard. Sorry and yes, sorry, I got the names confused. But then he won by a significant margin. I love this story.

00:04:26
Speaker 1: We did a full episode on this guy when he won last year. Excited us all get out, and I'll be honest with you, Roads, I hadn't kept up with him. And as he was getting prepared to take office, well, folks, it was time down in New Orleans for them to start. The new people who were elected to take office on Monday this coming Monday, May the four fourth, right, Well, mister Calvin Duncan is not going to be taking office because the office does not exist, and it was done away with day before he was set to take office. So I guess we got to explain here a little bit. Rose. But Republicans down there, the governor in particular and included, are making a claim that this is part of a bigger effort to revamp the judicial system in New Orleans and to what kind of consolidates some things to make it more streamlined, is the argument they're making. And as a part of this, they have combined that clerk's office that he won with another clerk's office, so he's left out to dry the robes. The office he was elected to they got rid of days before he was supposed to serve.

00:05:38
Speaker 3: Do not tell me this is a coincidence.

00:05:41
Speaker 2: That is, they are claiming, Yes, to sum it up, they're claiming they're right sizing the government, right sizing. What's the word. Isn't that so offensive? Downsizing? Right sizing? Whatever?

00:05:53
Speaker 3: But oh my goodness, the timing.

00:05:55
Speaker 2: It just so happened that Louisiana's Governor, Jeff Landry signed this law into effect this week. Again, as you point it out, days before he was set to take office to completely abolish the role all together. And they're just claiming it's financial, it's restructuring, its right sizing. And guess what, I love it, Calvin Duncan. This is a man who is not afraid to fight. This is a man who is patient. This is a man who has spent his time learning how to fight the man the authorities, and you know what, they can say whatever they want. But on my money's on Calvin Duncan. It's just a shame that he's having to fight again. It makes me actually sick that a man who has had to fight his whole life for basic rights, for truth now is having to do it again as he tries to fight to maintain the office that he rightfully and overwhelmingly won. Let me ask you this, do you believe do you believe that if the incumbent had won Do you believe that if Darren Lombard, who had been in that office for a long long time, had won the election as he fully expected to, would we be having a conversation about this office being eliminated before.

00:07:13
Speaker 1: My one question is when the effort started. I would like to know when discussion started in the governor's office or whatever about it. Maybe these conversations been going on for years about right sizing or when is the right time to do it, or how should we do I would like to have that question answered first, because Robes is if this was a scramble since the election to start doing robes. This is mean. This is the same system that cost him nearly thirty years of prison of his life by having him behind bars. He got out, did everything he was supposed to do, and you're still you won't You still found a way to get him. This is disgusting to me in that respect, Rose, because you took from him and then you're still taking. Like what else do you want him to do? He is perfectly qualified to do this job, and he is. You are making an example you all, he you all are proving his points. Look at what you did to him.

00:08:18
Speaker 2: Louisiana, andasy to do for him, the sixty two, sixty three year old black man.

00:08:24
Speaker 1: You took thirty years of his life in a wrongful conviction. You can't just let him have a job that he earned by the way through vote.

00:08:33
Speaker 2: I am I am not saying this dramatically, like this story actually makes me want to cry, Like it makes me that mad, like this person has been through so much and really you're gonna be that much of an asshole and eliminate the position days before.

00:08:48
Speaker 3: This is a job he has sought and looked.

00:08:54
Speaker 2: He probably didn't even dream that this could be his job while he was in prison, but once he got out, everything he did to put himself through law school, everything he did to run for this job, everything he did to win this election, and to have this happen days before he scheduled to take office is just so good. Hatent me unfair and I just it seems so unjust and it makes me so angry for him.

00:09:23
Speaker 1: Es I try. I want to leave room for maybe this was underway and maybe this has nothing to do. I want to leave room, but that seems naive. It seems, I mean, just absolutely stupid to just think in good faith this was done and he just happened to have to be a consequence. Robes, this is wrong, but what's happened to him? But folks, we don't don't We don't have to cry for mister Duncan. He's been there and done that, and like Robes just mentioned, he is fighting back and this ain't over. Stay here will tell you what his next move is. All right, we continue here on Amy and TJ on this Saturday, which, again, what was such a feel good story that I had lost track of? I'll be honest, I didn't know. Calvin Duncan was supposed to take office on Monday as the new criminal court clerk in New Orleans, a guy who had spent twenty eight years in prison wrongfully convicted, got out, got his law degree, ran for office, and this is the office robes that he said he had all kinds of hell with when he was in prison because he couldn't get documents, he couldn't get stuff he needed for his own case. He said, this office is a mess.

00:10:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, he couldn't have access to his own files that he needed to try and defend himself. So how perfect that he would then be elected to that very office so he could make sure that other inmates had the basics access to their files.

00:10:55
Speaker 1: He understands it better than any There is no one who could say, well this many years in politics are I used to work in city government. There's nobody better qualified than this guy for that part of this job. It's just not I know, it has some other functions. I know what deals with elections. Are they worried about that we can't have this guy in charge of our lives?

00:11:14
Speaker 2: What?

00:11:14
Speaker 1: I don't know what they're doing, bro Ah, this one just stings. But the guy, like we said, Robe, I said, don't cry for him. This man has been through it. And even though our hearts might hurt for him and what is being seemingly done to him, he ain't sitting in the corner sould.

00:11:28
Speaker 2: No.

00:11:28
Speaker 3: No, he knows. We mentioned.

00:11:31
Speaker 2: He's a lawyer, and he's putting all of that legal expertise into good use. He has filed a civil rights lawsuit. He filed it this week in Baton Rouge Federal Court after that bill passed, the final vote passed, and then Landry signed it. He is alleging in his lawsuit, I love this. The Governor Jeff Landry and the Attorney General Lismarol, who has been very outspoken against him. They're both named as defendants, and in this lawsuit, he is claiming that they both engaged in a coordinated conspiracy to keep him from taking office, in part by pushing lawmakers to pass the measure in retaliation for his outspoken criticism of the criminal justice system during his campaign last year for office.

00:12:17
Speaker 1: I want to hear more about that case. If he can prove that case, I'll sit in front row. Listen.

00:12:22
Speaker 3: Here's a quote from the filing.

00:12:24
Speaker 2: They aim to illegally obstruct mister Duncan's assumption of office by retroactively redefining the meaning of clerk of court that existed on November fifteenth, twenty twenty five.

00:12:34
Speaker 3: That was the date of mister Duncan's election.

00:12:36
Speaker 2: So too, are they working in coordination to retaliate against mister Duncan, an exonery who was wrongfully imprisoned for twenty eight years for his outspoken claims that the criminal legal system in Orleans is unjust and frequently discriminatory against black people.

00:12:53
Speaker 1: I will listen to that case. I will listen. He's suggesting this was not just like there is a coordinated conspiracy going on against I will listen to that story. I don't know what the merits are and how far that might go, but he's not giving up. I don't know what this means for the law though. Does this mean what happens on Mondays? Are you going to show up at the office to take his oath and they're going to turn him away.

00:13:17
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that he's represented by the ACLU of Louisiana, so they know what they're doing, and they are claiming along with him that this was a coordinated effort to silence him. They say it was a violation of his First Amendment rights. And so this is a big, large lawsuit that is going forward, and thank goodness it is. But in terms of what happens on Monday, that is unclear right now. He was elected to that office, the Louisiana State Legislature just eliminated that office. So it's hard to know what is supposed to happen. Because the suit is asking for the judge to stop this state from enforcing this an order that duncan take office at midnight on May fourth.

00:14:06
Speaker 1: I don't know how that's going to. Our phone is ringing here forgive the line here, But yeah, I don't know what that means for him moving forward. If the law is a law, it has been implemented, it's in place. Is somebody gonna deem it unconstitutional, but it has been passed. It means it is legal. It means robe that it is the law of the land at this point in Louisiana. So it can anything be done at this point, I don't know. But Monday there will be a showdown of some kind with mister Calvin Duncan to see whether or not he does in fact become the clerk of Louisiana and the office of clerk doesn't exist anymore. But Roves, I'll be very curious to see what happens on Monday. But it's the law of the land. The judge would have to deem the law what is unconstant. No, they have passed the law. The other thing, he would have to look at it and say, and you can't put a stay on the law.

00:15:01
Speaker 2: You know it's it's they're asking them to put a yeah to stop the state from enforcing this bill that was passed and.

00:15:09
Speaker 3: Signed by the governor.

00:15:10
Speaker 2: I'm not sure sure that legally what a judge is going to feel like he can or cannot or she.

00:15:15
Speaker 3: I did not want to just assign a gender to the judge.

00:15:17
Speaker 2: But that the judge could do what they want to do because the lawsuit claims, Look, this is interesting that they are attempting to do what they could not during the election. They were trying to get him unelected by all of the things that the attorney General was making public statements that were directly challenging his innocence. They were she was putting out statements to try and keep the incumbent in office and to try to make sure that he was not elected by trying to make voters in Orleans Parish believe that this man actually was a criminal.

00:15:49
Speaker 1: Some of us just call that politics. Yes, right, Can you do is that legally? Can that legally be challenged? I don't know what it might prove? Is that what you have to say, it proves that there was a coordinated effort, Yes, and that.

00:16:00
Speaker 2: Leads to the point where they couldn't stop him from getting elected. But now they're trying to literally unseat him.

00:16:07
Speaker 3: After he was legally elected.

00:16:10
Speaker 2: So look, I don't know if a judge can look at this and say, yeah, I see what's going on here. I'm going to put a stay on this. Can you put a stay on a bill that was signed by a governor?

00:16:19
Speaker 1: You could put you put a stay on other judgments. You don't put a stay on a bill. I can't.

00:16:23
Speaker 3: But that is what they are asking.

00:16:25
Speaker 2: They're asking the judge to stop the state from enforcing the law.

00:16:30
Speaker 3: The law that is a law Kim that.

00:16:34
Speaker 2: Won't allow him to be in the position he rightfully and legally earned.

00:16:38
Speaker 1: Okay, it's going to get we don't have legal degrees. His lawsuit is going to get tossed. But he's going to have to challenge the law itself, the civil one. You can't challenge a law. It's I mean, it's on the books now, it's unless that law is deemed unconstitutional. It's the law of the land.

00:16:53
Speaker 2: I've never heard of a of a government elected, like an elected position being eliminated for the person who was elected to the office took office. I mean, I've maybe it's happened before. I've never seen this before.

00:17:07
Speaker 1: We will see it again. And this is the problem, and this is scary. Robes. This will this is where we're going. If you can't beat them at the ballot box, you change your congressional map, you write a law to eliminate the position. This is what's happening in politics now. It's not even a matter of who wins on election day. Robes. We are seeing a pattern of everybody. Now we're just finding another way to win an election that's not on election day. So scary, I'm gonna just get myself more seats in Congress. I am literally going to sign a bill to eliminate the thing you were elected to.

00:17:42
Speaker 3: Dirty politics is what this is.

00:17:43
Speaker 1: No, it's New Orleans, baby, It's all good. And with that, folks who always appreciate you, spend some time here with us. Calvin Duncan. We'll see what happens on Monday.

00:17:52
Speaker 3: We will follow this on Monday midnight. By Monday.

00:17:55
Speaker 1: Your prediction is what's going to happen on Monday.

00:17:57
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't have one.

00:17:59
Speaker 1: He's going to work.

00:18:01
Speaker 3: I love it.

00:18:01
Speaker 1: He's showing up to work. They could do what they want because it's his job. This is what the people voted me to come do, and the governor said something else. Take it up.

00:18:13
Speaker 3: We need to get him on the podcast.

00:18:15
Speaker 1: We'll see him next week as well. This guy, this is your guy, all right, folks, We just wanted to give you that update. See what happens on Monday, but for this Saturday, for my dear Amy Roboc I'm TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to y'all soon