Sixteen Felonies For a Legal Letter? Why I Stand With Liz Murrill
- Hampton Law Firm ⚖️
- Jul 12
- 14 min read
I am going to say this plainly at the beginning so nobody has to read halfway through this article while trying to determine whether I am whispering my opinion behind a decorative hedge: I am on Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s side. Plainly, clearly and publicly.
That does not mean I believe an attorney general is above the law. It means that when the government indicts its own chief legal officer on sixteen felony counts arising from legal letters she sent while defending a state statute, the criminal theory needs to be extraordinarily clear and the process needs to be almost offensively clean. Instead, this case arrived with an indictment returned under circumstances that prompted serious open-court concerns, allegations that journalists were handcuffed and removed, apparent conflicts involving the special prosecutor, the recusal of the entire local criminal bench, an arrest warrant that remained active after the prosecution had been stayed, and a Louisiana Supreme Court order stating that the indictment appeared to turn the law “on its head.”
That is not one minor procedural irregularity. That is every warning light on the dashboard coming on while the prosecutor assures us the car is probably fine.
The dispute began with Act 15 of the 2026 Regular Session. New Orleans historically had separate clerks for its civil and criminal district courts. Calvin Duncan was elected clerk of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, but before his term began, the Legislature passed Act 15, which abolished the separate criminal clerk’s office and transferred its duties, authority, records, property and funds to the existing civil clerk’s office. The combined office would be held by Chelsey Richard Napoleon.
New Orleans officials disputed whether Act 15 created a vacancy in the newly combined office. The City Council attempted to appoint retired Judge Calvin Johnson as interim clerk and called for a special election. Attorney General Murrill took the position that no vacancy existed because the civil clerk’s office had continued, absorbed the criminal clerk’s functions and merely received a new name.
Murrill did not express that position delicately. Her May 13 letter to Mayor Helena Moreno warned that the mayor’s actions and the Council’s resolutions could trigger serious consequences under Louisiana’s usurpation-of-office laws, including possible forfeiture of the mayor’s own office. She warned that Judge Johnson could face exposure to fines, imprisonment, damages and litigation costs if he attempted to exercise authority belonging to the lawful clerk. She demanded that Moreno withdraw her support and take no further action recognizing Johnson’s appointment.
That letter was severe, forceful and exactly as I would hope a strong female lawyer and the Louisiana Attorney General would have written it.
It was intended to influence what public officials did next. Nobody needs to soften it into a gentle intergovernmental reminder accompanied by a fruit basket.
But being severe is not itself a felony.
Lawyers routinely send correspondence explaining that another person’s proposed conduct may violate the law, identifying the legal consequences that may follow, and demanding that the conduct stop. Those letters are often unpleasant because the circumstances are unpleasant. A demand letter that says nothing beyond “I respect your journey and hope the universe guides you toward voluntary compliance” is not much of a demand letter. It is a scented candle.
The important question is not whether Murrill’s letter was forceful. It clearly was. The important question is whether it satisfied the elements of the crimes charged.
Here is the part that gets lost if you are not already following Louisiana politics closely. New Orleans officials did not simply disagree with Act 15 or criticize the Legislature for passing it.
The City Council passed resolutions attempting to install retired Judge Calvin Johnson as an interim clerk and called for a special election for the newly combined office. In other words, the City proceeded as though Act 15 had created a vacant office that New Orleans officials were entitled to fill.
The State’s position was that there was no vacancy to fill. Act 15 abolished one clerk’s office, transferred its duties and property to the existing civil clerk’s office, and renamed the surviving office. Murrill believed the Council was attempting to recognize a competing officeholder and exercise appointment authority it did not legally possess. That is what prompted the letters. She was not sitting in Baton Rouge randomly selecting New Orleans officials to threaten on government letterhead.
She was responding to official action the Attorney General’s Office believed directly conflicted with a newly enacted state law.
An Orleans Parish grand jury returned a sixteen-count indictment against Murrill on July 2, 2026, reportedly consisting of eight counts of public intimidation and eight counts of malfeasance in office. The charges arose from letters sent to Mayor Moreno, District Attorney Jason Williams, members of the New Orleans City Council and retired Judge Johnson.
Louisiana Revised Statute 14:122 does not criminalize every effort to influence a public official. Public intimidation requires violence, force, an extortionate threat or a true threat used with the intent to influence someone’s conduct in relation to public office, employment or duty.
The definitions matter. An extortionate threat requires an unlawful threat to harm another person made to obtain something of value, an advantage, immunity or some other benefit that the speaker could not otherwise lawfully secure. A true threat requires a serious expression of an intent to commit an unlawful act of violence, made with the intent to place someone in fear of bodily harm or death.
On the public record presently available, Murrill’s letters did not threaten bodily injury or death. They did not threaten an unlawful act of violence. They cited statutes, stated the attorney general’s interpretation of those statutes, described the legal consequences she believed could follow, and warned that she would seek expedited judicial relief.
The prosecution may contend that threatening elected officials with the loss of their offices supplied the unlawful harm or advantage required by the statute. The evidence presented to the grand jury remains secret, and the public does not yet know the prosecution’s complete legal theory. That limitation should be acknowledged.
However, there is an enormous difference between saying, “Do what I demand or I will unlawfully harm you,” and saying, “I believe your conduct violates this law, these are the consequences stated in that law, and I will go to court to enforce it.” The second statement can be legally wrong, politically aggressive, professionally unwise or unnecessarily hostile without automatically becoming an extortionate threat.
If warning someone that a court proceeding may cost them their office is public intimidation, every lawyer who has ever written “failure to comply may result in further legal action” should begin organizing a defense committee. “Please govern yourself accordingly” has frightened generations of people, but we have generally treated it as lawyer language rather than evidence of a criminal enterprise.
The malfeasance counts present another fundamental question. Under Louisiana Revised Statute 14:134, malfeasance generally requires a public officer to intentionally refuse or fail to perform a legally required duty, intentionally perform an official duty in an unlawful manner, or knowingly permit a subordinate to do one of those things.
The charging theory therefore should identify the particular official duty Murrill allegedly failed to perform or the duty she intentionally performed unlawfully. Defending a duly enacted state statute, taking a position concerning the legal holder of a public office, communicating that position to affected officials, and seeking judicial enforcement would ordinarily appear to fall within the work of the attorney general.
That does not automatically defeat the charge. An official act does not become lawful merely because the official says it was part of her job. But malfeasance requires more than proving that the attorney general used her office to send a letter that made other government officials furious. Government officials making each other furious is not a corruption offense. It is most of government.
The underlying legal dispute eventually reached the Louisiana Supreme Court. On June 1, 2026, the Court held that Act 15 was constitutional, that the Legislature validly abolished the separate criminal clerk’s office, that no vacancy existed in the combined clerk’s office, and that Chelsey Richard Napoleon remained the lawful clerk. The Court permanently prohibited Johnson from exercising the duties of the office and prohibited the proposed special election. Crockett v. State of Louisiana c/w Napoleon v. City of New Orleans, 2026-CD-00594 (La. 6/1/26).
On the central question presented in Murrill’s letters—whether Act 15 created a vacancy that the Council could fill—Murrill was right.
That does not resolve everything in her favor. The Supreme Court also stated that, because there had been obvious confusion concerning Act 15, actions taken before the Court’s ruling would not be considered violations of Louisiana’s usurpation-of-office statutes. That qualification is important and should not be buried in a footnote simply because it is inconvenient.
The Orleans officials can fairly argue that the Court itself recognized the legal confusion and protected their pre-decision conduct from being treated as usurpation. They can also argue that Murrill’s warnings of forfeiture, fines and imprisonment were excessive when the governing law had not yet been definitively resolved.
I understand that argument. I still do not see how it supplies the violence, force, true threat or extortionate threat required for public intimidation. I also do not see where this language rises to anything more than the equivalent of any ordinary demand letter sent from lawyers across Louisiana daily:
“You are violating the law, I am entitled to and intend to seek legal relief if you do not change your conduct and comply with the law.”
The fact that a lawyer misstates, overstates or understates, the exact remedy available through the Court for the grievance cited, especially given the astonishingly confusing nature of how quickly laws can change, is not criminal conduct. The day a demand letter constitutes a felony charge in Louisiana is a sad day for our state and every resident here.
This would, in the long term, severely restrict the legal relief and remedies available to plaintiffs, defendants and their legal teams for serious issues on legal matters than expand far deeper than the political aspirations of a clerk in New Orleans.
Are we going to begin limiting an attorney’s legal right and ability to send demand letters on her client’s behalf? Are we limiting an attorney’s ability to communicate his or her interpretation of the law to opposing counsel?
Let's take the politics and the names out of it for a minute.
Say I represent a fictitious client. She is a single mother of three who says her boss sexually harassed her and then fired her when she finally spoke up. She does not have the money or the emotional bandwidth to immediately launch into years of litigation. So, in an attempt to resolve the matter, I send a demand letter. I tell her former employer that if he does not comply with the law by reinstating her or compensating her for her lost wages, my client intends to pursue every legal remedy available to her through the courts, including damages, attorney fees, and any other relief the law allows.
Now imagine another attorney reads the same statutes and cases I read and reaches a different conclusion. Maybe that attorney believes my client is not entitled to attorney fees. Maybe they think I overstated a category of damages. Maybe they believe I misunderstood the extent of the relief available to her altogether.
Am I now guilty of a felony?
Do I need to call my own lawyer because I sent a demand letter for my client? Is my client going to jail because the letter was sent on her behalf? At what point does a disputed legal interpretation become criminal intimidation, and who gets to decide which lawyer's interpretation was sufficiently wrong to justify handcuffs?
And what does that do to the legal rights of plaintiffs and defendants? If lawyers can face felony charges because someone later disagrees with the legal position asserted in a demand letter, then the safe option is no longer to send the letter and try to resolve the dispute. The safe option is to file suit first and ask a judge to decide what relief may be available before making the demand at all. We would take disputes that might have been resolved with one letter and force them into court simply so the lawyer could protect herself from prosecution.
Where does that end?
It shouldn't.
Because it should never have started.
The Supreme Court’s later clarification did not retroactively make Murrill’s legal position fictitious. It did not change the fact that she accurately predicted the Court’s central ruling that there was no vacancy and no lawful appointment for the Council to make. It meant the officials would not be punished under the usurper statutes for actions taken during the period of uncertainty. That may establish that Murrill stated the possible consequences too conclusively. It does not necessarily establish that she committed eight felonies by stating them.
The procedure surrounding the indictment creates separate problems that cannot be dismissed as partisan complaints.
Grand jury testimony, evidence and deliberations are secret. The return of an indictment is not. Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure Article 383 expressly provides that indictments shall be returned in district court “in open court.”
According to the public accounts cited by the Louisiana Supreme Court, journalists attempting to cover the return of Murrill’s indictment were excluded, handcuffed and removed. The Supreme Court stated that the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court appeared to have violated the express open-court requirement.
The secrecy of the grand jury protects the investigation. It does not authorize the courthouse to convert the public return of an indictment into a private ceremony and place reporters in restraints for noticing.
It is ironic when we accuse someone of criminal intimidation while journalists are allegedly being handcuffed for attempting to observe a legally public proceeding. That circumstance does not prove Murrill is innocent. It does, however, create a transparency problem large enough to require more of an explanation than “grand juries are secret.”
The role of special prosecutor Laurie White raises another issue. The Louisiana Supreme Court stated that White had previously represented Calvin Duncan, whose abolished office was at the center of the underlying dispute. The Court also stated that the Attorney General’s Office was then defending White in a separate sexual-harassment lawsuit. It characterized the likely conflicts, if the facts were accurately stated, as matters that “should have been obvious.”
That is careful judicial language delivering a very uncautious message.
No court has yet finally adjudicated whether White violated the Rules of Professional Conduct or whether she must be removed. It would be improper to state that an ethics violation has already been proven. But a prosecutor is not merely another advocate attempting to defeat an opponent. A prosecutor acts for the State and exercises the power to initiate criminal proceedings, obtain arrest warrants and place a citizen’s liberty and reputation in danger.
Even the appearance that a special prosecutor has prior loyalties connected to the person most affected by the underlying political dispute, while simultaneously being represented in separate litigation by the defendant’s office, should have prompted careful review before sixteen felony charges were presented. Instead, it became one more issue the Supreme Court had to identify after the indictment had already been returned.
The local judiciary presented further complications. All twelve judges of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court recused themselves, and the Louisiana Supreme Court appointed retired Judge Robert Chaisson to preside over the matter. Recusal does not establish misconduct or bias. Judges may step aside simply because their impartiality could reasonably be questioned or because recusal is necessary to protect public confidence.
Still, when an indictment is returned through a proceeding the Supreme Court describes as apparently defective, the special prosecutor faces apparent-conflict questions, and the entire local criminal bench concludes that an outside judge should handle the matter, we should stop pretending this is an ordinary prosecution moving through an ordinary courthouse.
On July 3, 2026, the Louisiana Supreme Court stayed the prosecution. The Court did not dismiss the indictment, decide Murrill’s guilt or innocence, or conduct an evidentiary hearing. The record was—and remains—undeveloped.
Nevertheless, the Court’s language was extraordinary.
It said Murrill had presented a compelling argument concerning disturbing defects in the grand jury proceedings and the trial court’s handling of them. It said the indictment appeared to turn the law on its head and flow from extraordinary procedural defects and improprieties. It stated there was considerable support for the view that Murrill was likely to succeed on a motion to quash, either on a legal basis or because of procedural irregularities. State v. Murrill, 2026-KD-00865 (La. 7/3/26).
Later that day, the Supreme Court separately ordered the arrest warrant recalled and removed from law-enforcement databases. The Court stated that its earlier stay obviously prevented Murrill’s arrest and that further clarification should not have been required.
This was not a final victory for Murrill. It was, however, far more than a routine scheduling order. The state’s highest court looked at the public record available to it and concluded that allowing the prosecution to continue before these defects were addressed would cause irreparable harm and disserve the public interest.
The dissenting justices raised a serious criticism that should not be ignored. Chief Justice John Weimer and Justice John Guidry objected that the majority acted before the ordinary trial-court process occurred, before an evidentiary record was developed, before the other side responded and before the Supreme Court knew what evidence had been presented to the grand jury.
Justice Guidry argued that Murrill had been allowed to cut in front of ordinary defendants, including incarcerated people who wait months or years for courts to review their claims. Chief Justice Weimer warned that extraordinary relief without the usual process could make it appear that politics, position or personality influenced the result.
As a criminal-defense attorney, I cannot pretend that concern is imaginary. I have represented defendants who remained incarcerated while plainly substantial legal issues moved through the court system with the speed of a tired possum crossing a parish road. Ordinary defendants rarely obtain immediate Supreme Court intervention before the paperwork from the indictment has cooled.
But the answer is not to deny Murrill relief from an apparently defective process because other defendants are forced to endure defective processes longer. The answer is to demand that courts treat those other defendants with the same urgency when unlawful warrants, conflicted prosecutors, defective charging instruments and constitutional violations are credibly alleged.
Equality does not require that everyone be treated poorly for the sake of consistency.
I support Liz Murrill because, based on the public record, this prosecution appears to stretch a statute aimed at violence, true threats and extortionate threats until it covers a legal warning issued by the attorney general while defending a state law. I support her because malfeasance should require proof of an identifiable legal duty intentionally abandoned or unlawfully performed—not merely proof that another public official found the attorney general’s letter threatening.
I support her because the Court ultimately agreed with her central legal position that Act 15 created no vacancy. I support her while also recognizing that the Court protected the Orleans officials’ earlier conduct from usurpation liability and that Murrill’s language can fairly be criticized as overly certain while the issue remained unresolved.
I support her because public proceedings should be public, prosecutors should be free of disqualifying conflicts, arrest warrants should not remain active after a prosecution has been stayed, and criminal statutes should not become political multipurpose tools that can be stretched to fit whichever public official is currently irritating the people controlling the grand jury room.
Most importantly, I support her because these rules cannot depend on whether the accused person is a Republican attorney general, a Democratic mayor, a district attorney, a sheriff, or an unknown defendant sitting in a parish jail without enough money to post bond.
An indictment is an accusation. It is not a conviction, and it is not proof that the prosecution’s legal theory is valid. A Supreme Court stay is also not an acquittal. The motions to quash, recusal issues and other defensive pleadings still must be litigated before the outside judge, and facts not presently available to the public may eventually change the analysis.
As of July 12, 2026, the indictment has not been dismissed. The prosecution remains stayed, the arrest warrant has been recalled, and an outside judge has been appointed.
Based on what is publicly known today, however, I do not see a convincing explanation for how warning public officials about stated statutory consequences became eight counts of public intimidation. I do not see a clearly identified official duty supporting eight companion counts of malfeasance. What I see is an aggressive legal letter, an unresolved political fight, a disputed criminal theory and a process carrying enough ethical and procedural baggage to require its own succession proceeding.
I am standing with Liz Murrill, but not because she is attorney general and not because she belongs to a particular political party. I am standing with her because public intimidation has statutory elements, malfeasance has statutory elements, prosecutors have ethical duties, indictments must be returned in open court, and criminal prosecutions should be built on law rather than the understandable human desire to punish someone who wrote a letter that made everybody furious.
The law is more than a statute printed on a page. It is also the process used to enforce it, the restraints placed on the people enforcing it, and the willingness of courts to stop the machinery when that process begins to look less like justice and more like retaliation wearing a courthouse badge.
Judith L. Hampton
Attorney at Law
Hampton Law Firm
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