The Louisiana Supreme Court late Friday night recalled an arrest warrant for Attorney General Liz Murrill after issuing a stay earlier in the day of a 16-count indictment returned by an Orleans Parish grand jury. The earlier stay was issued in a five-member majority decision signed by Justice Jay McCallum; Chief Justice John Weimer and Justice John Michael Guidry registered dissents to that earlier order.
The late-night order recalled the alias capias arrest warrant, directed the special prosecutor and law enforcement to remove the warrant from law enforcement databases and ordered them to "take all necessary actions to comply with this Order." The vote on recalling the warrant was 4-3, with Justices Billy Burris, Cade Cole, Jefferson Hughes and Jay McCallum in the majority and Chief Justice John Weimer and Justices Piper Griffin and John Michael Guidry dissenting.
Weimer wrote in his Friday night dissent, "It is said that procedure is the handmaiden of substance, but in criminal cases procedural rules are indispensable to serve justice and ensure that all are treated equally. Yet, ironically, on the eve of this July 4th when our nation will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, this court is once again called upon to provide exceptions to the normal process pursuant to another feigned emergency by one party."
Griffin wrote in a dissent that recalling the warrant "goes to the merits of the case." Griffin had voted in favor of the court's earlier decision to stay the indictment.
Guidry wrote that the majority had elevated "power and privilege over process" and called the action "yet another unprecedented preferential act by the majority bestowing a privilege that no other criminally charged defendant can reasonably expect to receive."
The grand jury indicted Murrill on Thursday on 16 felony counts alleging malfeasance in office and intimidation. Prosecutors say Murrill told eight New Orleans officials, including Mayor Helena Moreno and District Attorney Jason Williams, that they could face removal from their jobs because of their opposition to a law overhauling local courts; the warning came in a letter to city council members and the mayor after the council set a special election that would have given Calvin Duncan a shot at the combined clerk role, court filings say.
Legislators approved a GOP-backed overhaul at the urging of Gov. Jeff Landry that eliminated the elected Orleans Parish criminal court clerk position, transferred the position's duties to the parish civil court clerk and prevented Duncan, who spent nearly three decades in prison and has been described as exonerated, from taking office after winning with 68% of the vote. Duncan is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations, and Murrill and Landry have refused to acknowledge his exoneration.
Laurie White, the special prosecutor and a former judge, said she expects the case to be "very simple" and "very open and shut" and that she is "very interested in elected officials in New Orleans not being intimidated or threatened by letter or any other way," filings show. Defense filings raised concerns about White's involvement in the case, and the court noted potential conflicts, saying the attorney general's office represents White in a sexual harassment claim dating to her tenure on the bench and that White previously represented Duncan before his case was taken over by the Innocence Project.
The Supreme Court's earlier order said there were extraordinary procedural defects and improprieties surrounding the indictment and criticized Criminal District Court Judge Leon Roche for closing his courtroom as the grand jury returned the indictment, saying the court's actions appeared to violate Article 383 of Louisiana's Code of Criminal Procedure, which calls for grand jury returns to occur "in open court." WWL-TV producer Danny Monteverde and the station's attorney, Elana Beiser, were handcuffed and briefly detained while reporters waited in a hallway as the grand jury return was handled; the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office said deputies responded after Roche ordered them to secure the courtroom door and perimeter.
The filing signed by McCallum said, "This indictment appears to turn the law on its head" and noted a statutory requirement for the intimidation charge that alleged threats be "unlawful or include a threat of bodily harm or death." The court said the attorney general is likely to succeed in having the case dismissed and that she would suffer irreparable harm if the prosecution were allowed to proceed.
Murrill, who is the state's first female attorney general and a Republican, said she intends to ask a court to dismiss the case and called the indictment a "political witch hunt," saying she fears it may be a harbinger of things to come.
Murrill filed a second emergency request with the Louisiana Supreme Court asking the high court to recall an arrest warrant after the court had already issued a stay, filings show. An alias capias warrant for her arrest was issued by Criminal District Judge Leon Roche, and an attorney for Murrill, Laura Cannizzaro Rodrigue, wrote in the emergency filing Friday night that special prosecutor Laurie White had refused to recall the warrant and the $400,000 bond tied to it. Rodrigue quoted White as writing, "Kyle, Blake, I also like the tone of the letter. Good job Blake, you can do a letter!" Rodrigue said White also wrote, "I object to the removal of the capias (warrant), as the accused should not get any more preferential treatment than any other criminally charged defendant," and that White accused Murrill's team of asking the court "to micromanage this case differently than a regular pending matter." Rodrigue said White added, "Speaking of conflicts, is the State of Louisiana paying for the defense of the accused using taxpayer money??!" In the emergency filing, Rodrigue asked the Supreme Court to order the capias warrant's recall and to order the Orleans Parish Sheriff to remove it from law enforcement databases, saying the court's stay "intended to encompass — if not exclusively target — the execution of an arrest warrant of the Louisiana Attorney General in a matter which the Court deemed her 'likely to succeed on the merits.'"