Louisiana’s highest court has granted a stay of the proceedings in a criminal indictment targeting the state’s attorney general, in the latest twist of a high-stakes political battle between Republican state leaders and Democrats who govern its most famous city, New Orleans.
Liz Murrill, a Republican who is Louisiana’s first female attorney general, was slapped with a 16-count indictment on Thursday by a New Orleans grand jury charging her with intimidation and malfeasance. The charges effectively accused her of trying to intimidate New Orleans officials who fought a law passed by Republican legislators to overhaul the city’s courts.
Murrill quickly moved for a stay on Thursday. And the Louisiana supreme court granted it early on Friday, finding she made “a compelling argument concerning the disturbing defects in the grand jury proceedings and in the trial court’s handling of those proceedings”.
The attorney general had also called the charges against her “retaliatory, meritless and unconstitutional”, writing on X that she would continue “doing the job the people of Louisiana elected me to do”.
Separately, the state’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, has promised a swift pardon, saying Murrill would not have her reputation tarnished by a “kangaroo court”.
The supreme court order resulting in Friday’s stay says the case was meant to allow Murrill to “assert any and all necessary defensive pleadings, including motions to quash”.
“This stay shall not prevent the filing of a response to any pleadings filed by the attorney general,” the order also said.
The stay came a day after the announcement of the grand jury indictment that was shrouded in secrecy. News media members awaiting in the courtroom of the New Orleans judge Leon Roche to await the potential extraordinary return of the indictment against Murrill were escorted out after he ordered the room sealed.
The public has the legal right to access court proceedings. And Louisiana law requires grand jury returns to be made in open court. So news outlet WWL Louisiana, a Guardian reporting partner, protested against the closure to try to maintain access to the proceedings.
An investigative producer for the station, Danny Monteverde, and the outlet’s attorney, Elana Beiser, were subsequently handcuffed and removed from the courtroom as well as from an outside hallway.
Roche at the time did not explain why he had sealed the courtroom, local newspaper the Times-Picayune reported. Later, a statement from a court spokesperson said grand jurors must be physically present when indictments are returned – and that confidentially ensures their identities are protected so that they can deliberate “freely, objectively and without fear of public exposure”.
The Guardian has reached out to WWL Louisiana for comment.
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Political tensions for months have intensified between Louisiana state Republicans and Democratic New Orleans officials over a new law that abolished a court clerk office won by Calvin Duncan, who spent nearly three decades in prison in connection to a murder that he was exonerated of having committed.
Murrill at one point told eight New Orleans officials – including Helena Moreno, the mayor, and Jason Williams, the district attorney – that they could face removal from their jobs because they opposed the law eliminating Duncan’s position.
Duncan has said he believes state officials were retaliating against him by eliminating the job that he won in November with 68% of the votes cast. Murrill and Landry have long refused to acknowledge Duncan as exonerated, though he’s listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.
Among other things, Murrill’s successful motion for a stay of her indictment raised concerns that the special prosecutor who obtained the charges – former judge Laurie White – previously served as an attorney for Duncan.
The state supreme court on Friday noted that its stay shall also “not prevent the filing of motions for the recusal of either the special prosecutor or the trial judge, or responses thereto”.
