Special prosecutor drops all felony criminal charges against Louisiana Attorney General Murrill
A special prosecutor on Wednesday dismissed felony criminal charges against Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who was indicted on accusations of threatening the jobs of New Orleans officials who fought a Republican-led overhaul of courts in the heavily Democratic city.
The case was put on hold almost immediately after the July 2 indictment, when the Louisiana Supreme Court said the local court and special prosecutor did not follow procedures surrounding the indictment. The dismissal by special prosecutor Laurie White came a day after New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams, Democratic Mayor Helena Moreno and five City Council members sent a letter urging her to drop the case.
“What I did was not a crime, it was never a crime,” said Murrill, a Republican. “I think this was a malicious prosecution.”
At the center of the case are deepening rifts between the state's Republican leaders and Democrats who control Louisiana’s most prominent city.
Orleans Parish online court records show White submitted the letters from the elected city officials and the prosecutor to a judge before dismissing each count. The case against Murrill was then ordered “closed.”
White did not immediately respond to a request for comment emailed to her office.
In a statement provided to multiple New Orleans media outlets, White said she performed her lawful duty as a special prosecutor and noted that a grand jury brought the indictment.
White also criticized what she described as interference in the case but did not go into detail.
“Extraordinary interference in this situation has been truly unfortunate, and we should all hope that it doesn’t set a precedent,” White said.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry had promised a swift pardon, saying Murrill would not have her reputation tarnished by an “Orleans Kangaroo court.”
Appearing with Murrill at a news conference on the state's preparations for Tropical Storm Bertha, Landry said he would welcome state and federal investigations into how and why Murrill was indicted.
“I think the feds need to come in,” Landry said.
Moreno was among those who had accused the state’s top law enforcement official in May of making threats against public officials.
The initial 16-count indictment handed up by a New Orleans grand jury accused Murrill, the state’s first female attorney general, of intimidation and malfeasance.
For months, political tensions intensified between Louisiana Republicans and New Orleans officials over a new law that abolished a court clerk office won by an exoneree, Calvin Duncan, who spent nearly three decades in prison. The change consolidated that job with another clerk’s office, which Republican supporters said would make the local judicial system more efficient.
New Orleans leaders opposed the change. In May, the City Council set a special election that would have given Duncan a chance to win the newly combined job. Murrill responded by warning local officials in letters that they could lose their offices for violating state “usurper” laws, which forbid support for an unauthorized officeholder.
The mayor was among those who had accused the state’s top law enforcement official in May of making threats against public officials.
Murrill said she had merely advised city officials of what the law was and that they had broken it. “I didn’t write that law. The Legislature wrote that law. I just explained it to them.”
Murrill called the indictment a threat of extortion and public intimidation, “to put me in jail for telling them that I'm going to carry out my official duties.”
In their Tuesday letter, the mayor and City Council members said they were not intimidated by Murrill's previous letters.
“While the correspondence at issue contained threatening language directed toward public officials, we never believed those threats could lawfully or practically be carried out. We continue serving the people of New Orleans without hesitation,” the mayor and council members wrote.
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Associated Press reporter Jack Brook contributed to this story.
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