Calvin Duncan

Early life Calvin F. Duncan was born in New Orleans, in , After their mother died, he and his younger sister lived with a series of different relatives and transferred between different schools. Duncan left school after ninth grade, and joined the Job Corps to get out of New Orleans. Yeager's girlfriend was shown a photo array, and picked out Duncan's mugshot from age 14, but said she was not sure. The police issued an arrest warrant for Duncan, and named him in a television broadcast. In July, another tip to Crime Stoppers said Duncan was working in Clackamas County, Oregon.

When Duncan's attorney filed a request with the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office for any exculpatory evidence, he was told there was none. He wrote a 1984 motion titled "Motion for a Law Book" and sent it to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which redirected it to the New Orleans Fourth Circuit, which in turn redirected it to the trial court, which gave him a Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure. He was called the Snickers lawyer, for the candy fee prisoners gave him for his help. Duncan said going to Angola was "like going from hell to paradise" for him, because there he was able to study what he loved. Professional lawyers, including Katherine Mattes, later a law professor at Tulane University, would go to him for advice.

Duncan's work inside the prison inspired the 2001 creation of the Innocence Project New Orleans, a nonprofit law firm focusing on supporting convicted inmates; It took almost eight more years before he was released from Angola, on January 7, 2011. Duncan still had the $10 check in 2025. Duncan used the award to create and direct the Light of Justice program, working to protect prisoners' rights, based first at The Promise of Justice Initiative, then at the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University. In 2015, he co-founded Rising Foundations, an organization to help former prisoners receive housing and employment. For this and other work he received the 2015 Echoing Green Black Male Achievement Fellowship.

In 2022, Duncan and Marcus Kondkar, professor of sociology at Loyola University New Orleans, co-founded The Visiting Room Project, of video interviews with inmates in Angola serving life without parole sentences. More than 70% of the prisoners in Angola are serving such sentences, and more than 70% are black. This is the largest such collection of interviews in the world. Over 100 interviews were conducted over two years, initially by both Duncan and Kondkar, then only by Kondkar, since Duncan knew so many of the inmates personally that they were reluctant to show weakness in front of him.

Split-verdict criminal juries In 1898, in reaction to the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Strauder v. West Virginia forbidding black people to be excluded from juries, Louisiana held a constitutional convention, changing the law to only requiring nine out of 12 jurors to convict defendants of serious felonies. This would allow the votes of that minority which could not be excluded altogether to at least be ignored. Thomas Jenkins Semmes, former Confederate Senator and head of the convention judiciary committee, stated the goal of the change was "to establish the supremacy of the white race in this State to the extent to which it could be legally and Constitutionally done."

In 1972, Louisiana and Oregon were still the only states that allowed non-unanimous verdicts in criminal cases, and their practice was upheld by the Supreme Court in two cases, Apodaca v. Oregon and Johnson v. Louisiana. While this did not affect Duncan's case, since he was convicted unanimously, he still thought this law was unfair, and could be challenged. including Duncan's contributions. In March 2019, on Duncan's 23rd petition, the Supreme Court finally agreed to hear the case Ramos v. Louisiana questioning this law.

Exoneration A 2021 Louisiana law allowed persons who had pled guilty to still challenge their convictions if they had evidence of innocence. On August 3, 2021, two days after the law took effect, Duncan's conviction was vacated given the state's suppression of evidence, and the state dismissed the charges.

In 2020, Duncan entered Lewis & Clark Law School in Oregon, In 2024, Duncan was an adjunct instructor at Tulane School of Professional Advancement teaching Criminal Law (and in 2025 also Legal Research).

The Jailhouse Lawyer

Duncan's memoir, The Jailhouse Lawyer, co-authored with Sophie Cull, was published on July 8, 2025 (Penguin Random House, ). Cull is an activist from Australia who relocated to the United States inspired by Sister Helen Prejean's book Dead Man Walking. and co-founded the Visiting Room Project with Duncan and Kondkar.

Clerk of Criminal Court In the 2025 New Orleans elections, Duncan ran for Clerk of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, the office that, he says, had denied him access to the trial records of his own conviction that he needed to prove his innocence. New Orleans/Orleans Parish was the only parish in Louisiana that had not digitized its court records from paper form,

The election was Duncan's first political race. It turned a race for a bureaucratic, technical office into one of the most-watched races in the city. then won the November 15 runoff against Lombard with 68% of the vote. Duncan was scheduled to be sworn in as clerk in May 2026.

Efforts to eliminate the position In the 2026 Regular Legislative Session, Republican State Senator Jay Morris introduced Senate Bill 256 which would eliminate the position of the Criminal District Clerk of Court, effective August 1, 2026, with its duties to be absorbed by the Civil District Clerk of Court. Senator Morris represented Louisiana's 35th State Senate district, 200 to 300 miles from Orleans Parish, and introduced the bill under instruction from Governor Jeff Landry. spoke in the legislative committee meetings to express her concerns and opposition to this bill, and the effects it would have on her office. After learning that this would shorten Duncan's term, which is not allowed under the Louisiana Constitution, Senator Morris amended his bill on the Senate floor to become effective upon the Governor's signature, and pushed the bill through the legislature to get it to the Governor prior to Duncan beginning his term on May 4, 2026.

On April 21, 2026, Duncan took his ceremonial oath of office on the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court steps. On May 3, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana Judge John deGravelles ruled SB256 unconstitutional and blocked the state from eliminating Duncan's elected position. Prompted by the request of Louisiana Attorney General Murrill, the order was then stayed by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Duncan arrived to take office on Monday May 4, but left later that day, upon being informed of the appeals decision. The appeals court decision was upheld by a split Louisiana Supreme Court, in a 4–3 decision on June 1.

On May 11, New Orleans city council moved to interpret SB256 as merging two existing positions into a new office of Clerk of Court, requiring an interim appointment and special election, with both Duncan and Napoleon displaced from the positions to which they had been elected, and eligible to run again in the interim election. Murrill disputed that interpretation, and sent the mayor and city councillors letters warning them not to do anything that would remove Napoleon from office, at risk of losing their own jobs. On July 2, a New Orleans jury indicted Murrill for intimidation of public officials, a move stayed by the Louisiana Supreme Court.