THE JAILHOUSE LAWYER: "Calvin Duncan's memoir, The Jailhouse Lawyer, written with Sophie Cull, was published in July 2025. In November 2025, Duncan was elected clerk of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. Available through the llnk below: Some appreciative comments:
James Forman, Jr.
“The legal system tried to destroy Calvin Duncan. But rather than submit, he used the law to fight back, both for himself and for hundreds of other incarcerated men. This brilliantly told story—at once maddening and miraculous—is among the most powerful indictments of our criminal justice system I’ve ever read.”
Adam Haslett
“The truth is a powerful force, but without advocates, it dies. And Calvin Duncan is an advocate for the truth unlike any you’ve ever encountered—not simply on his own behalf but for hundreds of others caught up in the unending disaster of our American gulag. The book he and Sophie Cull have written with such precision and vividness and heart is a testament to that advocacy which no judge or court can deny. Read it and weep. Books that change the way you see the world are few and far between. The Jailhouse Lawyer is one of them.”
Sr. Helen Prejean
“Calvin Duncan is surely the most extraordinary jailhouse lawyer of our time. The Jailhouse Lawyer offers an intimate portrayal of Duncan’s decades-long journey for justice, fighting for thousands of indigent prisoners against a merciless legal system. This remarkable debut is both a powerful account of Duncan’s struggle and a clarion call to end the brutal legacy of mass incarceration. Duncan’s relentless determination to champion those forgotten by justice will ignite a fire within you that will burn long after you’ve finished the book.”
Jim McCloskey
“A superbly written, compelling memoir chronicling Calvin Duncan’s remarkable life—an innocent man incarcerated at the infamous Angola State Prison who became a self-taught, brilliant jailhouse lawyer. Although the word ‘hero’ is greatly overused in today’s society, in my mind, Calvin Duncan is a hero in the truest sense of that word. I urge all who are in need of inspiration to please read this riveting account of an indomitable spirit in the face of ongoing stiff resistance.”
https://www.calvinduncan.com/p/book-the-jailhouse-lawyer
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Dear readers; Read the National Registry of Exoneration's (NRE) entry below and learn what Louisiana did to Calvin Duncan, an innocent man so they could take away 30 years of his life. It is reflected in the grounds listed in the NRE's grounds for exoneration. 'Mistaken Witness ID, Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct, and inadequate Legal Defense.' To his credit, as The Associated Press ( Reporters Jack Brook and Sara Cline) informs us, Calvin Duncan was elected to become to the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court after pledging to reform the justice system based on his own experience fighting to access court records while in maximum security prison. But, to their shame, "Now, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and the GOP-controlled Legislature are racing to eliminate his job before he can be sworn in" - as part of plans to streamline the state's justice system. We are told that the swearing in is scheduled for May 4. Good luck Mr, Duncan, You truly deserve the position. You have a noble mission. The system needs you more than it needs administrative streamlining. Those feckless, cynical politicians without any sense of justice should not be allowed to get in the way.
Harold J. Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
PS: Definition of 'feckless': Careless and irresponsible; Feeble or ineffective; Spiritless' weak; worthless'
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
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STORY: Louisiana GOP races to eliminate an elected office won by an exonerated man in New Orleans promising to fix a judicial system that failed him, (by Reporters Jack Brook and Sara Cline) published by Associated Press, on April 9, 2026. (Jack Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues"…"Sara Cline reports for The Associated Press, covering the Oregon Legislature and state government, with a special focus on the tech boom and the crisis in housing affordability. Cline covered City Hall and homelessness at the San Antonio Express-News through the
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GIST: "A man imprisoned for nearly 30 years before being exonerated won a landmark election in New Orleans promising to fix a judicial system that failed him. Now, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and the GOP-controlled Legislature are racing to eliminate his job before he can be sworn in.
Calvin Duncan won 68% of the vote last November to become the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court after pledging to reform the justice system based on his own experience fighting to access court records while in maximum security prison.
Duncan rebuilt his life, in part by running for and winning the clerk’s office. But Louisiana Senate Republicans on Wednesday voted to scrap Duncan’s new job as part of a broader GOP effort to streamline the judiciary in New Orleans, a Democratic hub with a predominantly Black electorate. The state Legislature is largely Republican and white, and the deeply red state has been leading efforts to gut the Voting Rights Act.
Duncan’s swearing in is scheduled for May 4.
He told The Associated Press he believes he’s being retaliated against by Louisiana officials who have long denied his innocence, even though his name is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.
“The citizens of New Orleans overwhelmingly said: ‘I want to give this person a chance, he can make a difference,’” Duncan, a Democrat, told lawmakers during a March committee hearing. “What this bill does, it says: ‘Thank you but you wasted your time.’ It disenfranchises everybody.”
The wrongful conviction that landed Duncan in prison
The case started with the 1981 murder of 23-year-old David Yeager and landed Duncan in prison for more than 28 years. In 2011, on the eve of a hearing to consider new evidence, prosecutors offered to reduce Duncan’s sentence to time served if he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery. Duncan was freed, but he didn’t give up trying to clear his name.
Finally, in 2021, a judge agreed that he had been unjustly convicted and vacated Duncan’s sentence altogether.
As state attorney general in 2023, Landry opposed Duncan’s petition to be compensated for his wrongful conviction. Duncan withdrew the petition after Landry’s successor, Liz Murrill, threatened to go after Duncan’s law license in the state. When Duncan ran for clerk, Murrill vowed to take “further action” against him if he did not stop calling himself “exonerated.”
Landry and Murrill have pointed to Duncan having accepted the 2011 plea deal for manslaughter and armed robbery.
“The Attorney General made it clear during the election that if I continued to accurately speak about my innocence and exoneration that I would face consequences from her office,” Duncan told The Associated Press. “We are seeing those consequences today as she and the Governor try to undo the will of 68% of voters in New Orleans.”
Murrill said she had “no involvement” in the move to eliminate the office.
Republicans say the current system needs an overhaul
Landry told the AP that eliminating Duncan’s elected office was about improving “government efficiency” and “cleaning up a system in Orleans Parish that has been plagued by dysfunction and corruption for years.”
Proponents of consolidating the criminal clerk of court with the civil clerk of court say the offices are combined in other parishes. Terminating the criminal clerk of court position would save the state an estimated $27,300, according to the office of the legislative auditor, which added that the costs of combining clerks’ offices were “unknown.”
The bill’s Republican author, Sen. Jay Morris, who represents a district in north Louisiana, acknowledged that once Duncan’s elected position is eliminated, the civil clerk of court might struggle to handle the influx of cases. The solution, he says, is to “hire someone.”
Other New Orleans elected judicial officials whose jobs may be eliminated in the future would be allowed to serve out their terms, but not Duncan.
Morris told lawmakers that the goal is to pass the law in time to prevent Duncan from taking office before the start of his four-year term.
The bill, on track to be passed by the GOP-controlled House and approved by Landry, would immediately go into effect with the governor’s signature.
“I have never seen something so barbaric,” Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat representing New Orleans said on the Senate floor. “I understand politics and I know you all are going to vote how you are going to vote. But just know, when we are all done here, history has a record.”
Duncan, 62, was the driving force behind a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended nonunanimous jury convictions. He has also founded a nonprofit dedicated to expanding incarcerated people’s access to the court system. He has said being elected to the clerk’s office was the culmination of his life’s work.
Yeager's girlfriend, 15-year-old Kristi Emberling, told police that two young Black men came up to her and Yeager while they were waiting for the bus. They asked the couple if they wanted to buy some marijuana. Yeager and Emberling said no. One of the men then pulled out a gun.
Yeager fought with that man. Emberling heard shots, and Yeager fell to the ground. She saw one of the men go through Yeager's pockets and fish out his wallet. The robbers then ran away.
In her first statement to police, Emberling said both men were between 15-25 years old. One was about 5' 10" tall and stocky, with a light complexion. The second she described as about 5' 6" tall, with a thin build and a darker complexion. Several other witnesses saw the robbery but were unable to give the police detailed descriptions.
Detective Marco Demma of the New Orleans Police Department took a second statement from Emberling a week later, on August 13, 1981. She said that the taller, stockier man had the gun and shot Yeager.
She described the gunman to Demma. "He was black, he had a mustache like he didn't shave in a week or two. He had like a knit winter cap, a leather or vinyl jacket, and a pair of blue jeans. He could have been 5' 8" tall, stocky, 185 or 190 pounds." In her initial description, Emberling had said this man wore a sun visor, not a knit hat.
The second man, Emberling said, was between 125 or 130 pounds, wearing a plaid long-sleeve shirt, with a short afro. "He was tall and skinny, about 5' 9" tall, and was wearing blue jeans and tennis shoes."
The investigation ran cold for several months. On February 15, 1982, the police department highlighted the case through its Crime Stoppers program. Three days later, a man called the Crime Stoppers hotline, said he was interested in the $1,000 award, and said that 18-year-old Calvin Duncan was the "perpetrator."
Demma located a mugshot of Duncan from a juvenile arrest that was four years old. He prepared a photo array and showed it to Emberling on March 7, 1982. Demma would write in his report that after viewing the photos, Emberling selected Duncan and said "This is the one who shot David."
He asked her if she was sure. According to the report, Emberling hesitated and said she wasn't sure and that she was scared. Demma and his partner left the house, but returned about an hour later after Emberling called the officers and said she was positive in her identification. On March 8, 1982, an arrest warrant was issued for Duncan.
On July 23, 1982, Crime Stoppers received a second tip. According to a police memo, a female caller said that she had received a letter from Duncan, who was working for the Job Corps in Clackamas County, Oregon, and using the name Calvin Jones.
On August 6, 1982, Lt. Roy Reed and Detective Loren Peterson of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office arrested Duncan at the Job Corps center in the town of Estacada. During an initial interview, according to a report prepared by Reed, Duncan said he had no knowledge of the murder. Reed told him that a woman had witnessed the shooting. Duncan indicated he knew the witness was white. Reed would write that this was "noteworthy." Duncan said he first heard about the crime in February 1982 after the Crime Stoppers report and that he had hitchhiked out west to join the Job Corps, learn a trade, stay out of trouble, and save some money to hire a good attorney if he was later arrested.
Ten days later, as he was awaiting extradition to Louisiana, Duncan gave a second statement to Reed and Peterson. According to Reed's report, Duncan said the witness wouldn't be able to identify him. Reed lied to Duncan and said that he had been identified in part based on his prominent gold front teeth. Duncan said everybody in New Orleans had gold teeth, and he had his for at least two years. According to Reed's report, Duncan said he was afraid he would not get a fair trial in Louisiana.
Reed also returned to how Duncan knew the witness was a white woman. Reed wrote, "Duncan stated that it had to be a white woman or else they wouldn't have kept working on the case so long."
Demma and his partner, Detective Donald Curole, flew out to Oregon, on August 23, 1982, to escort Duncan back to New Orleans. They interviewed him at the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.
Duncan repeated much of what he told Reed and Peterson. He said he had left New Orleans in February 1982 after learning he was a suspect in the shooting. The detectives challenged him on his timing, noting that the arrest warrant wasn't issued until March. Demma's report on the interview also highlighted Duncan's apparent knowledge of the murder. "Calvin Duncan again mentioned the fact about the victim being white and the witness being a female, without either of the detectives mentioning it," Demma wrote.
Duncan was charged with first-degree murder.
On October 8, 1982, Duncan's attorney filed a request for the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office to provide any exculpatory evidence in the case. A month later, Leon Cannizzaro, then an assistant district attorney, responded. "The state has no exculpatory evidence," he wrote.
On August 15, 1983, Reed pled guilty in federal court to a single count of wiretapping and received five years on probation. According to a sentencing statement, Reed illegally installed a transmitter on the phone of a Clackamas County Commissioner whom some other officials believed was corrupt. Reed said that Peterson was present during early discussions on how to surveil the commissioner but did not know or take part in the installation of the eavesdropping device.
On February 2, 1984, an assistant prosecutor named Bruce Whittaker wrote his boss a memo about the problems with the Duncan case and recommended that prosecutors try to cut a deal and get Duncan to plead guilty to second-degree murder.
Whitaker noted the tentativeness of Emberling's initial identification. "Although she states the tentativeness was due to her understandable fear, the fact remains that the identification was seriously damaged for trial," Whittaker wrote. "Reed's inextricable involvement in all statements and his subsequent conviction would present serious problems in a jury trial," Whittaker wrote. "In response to a defense discovery request, the State informed the defense that none of its witnesses had a conviction record. In light of our continuing duty, such answer is no longer sufficient."
Duncan's trial in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court began in January 1985. He was represented by an attorney appointed through the Orleans Indigent Defenders Program. Prior to the trial's start, the attorney asked Judge Frank Shea to authorize funds to secure the testimony of an expert on mistaken witness identification. Judge Shea declined the request. "[If] you think every time I have a murder case I am going to have this expert come down because of the identification question, you are in the wrong court," he said.
Emberling was the state's main witness. She testified that Duncan was the gunman who shot and killed Yeager. Duncan was neither light-skinned nor stocky, as Emberling had told the police. Lacking the police reports, Duncan's attorney was unable to question Emberling on these inconsistencies in her descriptions. In her testimony, Emberling said that Duncan appeared to have "lost a lot of weight" since the robbery. She also testified that she had not noticed the gunman having any gold teeth.
Demma testified that Emberling had never hesitated in her identification of Duncan.
He also testified that Duncan had knowledge of the race of the victim and the eyewitness, and that these were facts only a person involved with the crime would have known. Demma testified that he didn't give the Oregon officers any information that identified the race of Emberling or Yeager. In addition, Demma testified falsely that the first caller to the Crime Stoppers hotline hadn't expressed interest in a reward.
Reed, now a convicted felon, did not testify, and his role in the investigation was minimized. Demma testified that Peterson was his principal contact in Clackamas County. Peterson testified that he knew nothing about the race or gender of the victims when he and Reed first interviewed Duncan.
Duncan testified and denied any involvement. He testified that Emberling was mistaken, noting that she had not mentioned any gold teeth in her description. Duncan testified he had gotten his gold teeth around 1979. A cousin also testified in support of that account.
Duncan testified that he had left New Orleans in late January 1982 and lived with a relative in Los Angeles before moving to Oregon in April. Duncan denied telling the Oregon officers any particulars of the murder. He testified that he knew some details of the crime before his arrest because his aunt in New Orleans had telephoned and written to him, telling him about a television broadcast that said he was wanted as a suspect in the murder.
In addition, Duncan testified that on the night of August 7, 1981, he was painting his aunt's house, because it was his cousin's birthday the next day. The aunt and her children testified about these events, but the cousin did not testify about the actual date of his birthday, allowing prosecutors to cast doubt on this alibi. The aunt also testified and corroborated Duncan's testimony about their communication when he was in California and Oregon.
During closing arguments, the state said Emberling had been strong and consistent in her identification of Duncan. The prosecutor also said that Duncan's statements to investigators showed "guilty knowledge," which was a "darn good indication" that he killed Yeager.
The jury convicted Duncan of first-degree murder on January 29, 1985, and he later received a sentence of life without parole, to be served at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.
Duncan quickly appealed. He argued, among other things, that Judge Shea had erred when he wouldn't let Duncan's attorney examine a supplemental report that Peterson had used to refresh his memory during testimony. Louisiana's Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction on December 15, 1987.
During the next 17 years, Duncan filed a series of pro se motions for a new trial and petitions for writs of habeas corpus in state and federal courts. With funds he received in part from selling his plasma in prison, he hired an investigator, who took his money without performing the proper work.
In his appeals, Duncan said that he had been improperly questioned by the Oregon and New Orleans officers and that prosecutors had failed to disclose the police reports highlighting the discrepancies between Emberling's initial descriptions and her trial testimony. He also said that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel, because his attorneys made mistakes during the trial and didn't properly investigate his case.
The state and federal courts affirmed the convictions and denied his petitions and appeals. On January 18, 2002, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a lower-court ruling and said that prosecutors did not have to disclose the New Orleans police reports because they did not include any exculpatory evidence; whatever hesitation Emberling presented during her initial identification didn't really contradict her testimony. It was due to fear, not uncertainty, the court said.
Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO) began representing Duncan in 2004. The organization began reinvestigating the case and filed numerous public-records requests for documents from police and prosecutors. Building from earlier motions filed by Duncan, IPNO filed a new petition for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana on October 8, 2008.
The petition reasserted that Emberling's identification, based on her statements to police, was far less certain than her testimony suggested. The reinvestigation had also forced the release of the reports by the police in Clackamas County and New Orleans, including the communications between the two departments.
These documents showed that Louisiana officials had sent the Oregon detectives information stating the race and gender of Emberling and Yeager. This contradicted Peterson's testimony that he was unaware of these facts. In addition, the records showed that Reed was the author of the reports detailing the Clackamas interviews with Duncan, and that Reed, not Peterson, was Demma's point person in Oregon. This contradicted Demma's testimony.
IPNO's research had uncovered Reed's conviction and his statement about Peterson's involvement. "Reed's felony conviction and dishonesty, as well as Peterson's complicity, would have seriously undermined the state's case had they been made known to the jury," the petition said.
The habeas petition also said Duncan's attorneys had provided ineffective representation, in part due to a lack of time and resources. Four attorneys at various times represented Duncan, and they didn't always pass on relevant information. The two attorneys who tried the case made no effort until the trial to show Duncan had received gold teeth several years before the murder. IPNO investigators also found the cousin's birth certificate, confirming that his birthday was August 8.
The habeas petition said Duncan's attorneys had failed to interview Emberling prior to her testimony. The petition said this could have revealed that she initially described the gunman as light-skinned and stocky, in conflict with Duncan's actual appearance. In addition, the attorneys didn't try to investigate the two callers to the Crime Stoppers tip line or get this evidence excluded as hearsay. (The first caller simply referred to Duncan as the "perpetrator;" the second did not say he had committed a crime, just where he was.) The petition said that Duncan's attorneys were hamstrung by the state's lack of disclosure; they didn't know what they didn't know.
An investigator with IPNO interviewed Emberling in 2004. She said in a statement that she still felt like she picked the right person, but she also gave additional detail about how she became certain of her identification. "When I saw the picture that was Calvin Duncan, I told the detective that I needed to see him in person to be sure," she said. "Then I saw him being arrested and brought back to New Orleans on the TV and when I saw him then I knew that was him."
The petition said Emberling's statement ran counter to the state's closing trial argument and the 2002 ruling from the Fifth Circuit. "Ms. Emberling was uncertain for almost six months after seeing Mr. Duncan's photo and only gained the certainty she showed at trial after viewing Mr. Duncan in the highly suggestive posture of being returned to New Orleans in police custody, identified on television as her late boyfriend's murderer."
Running parallel with the federal petition, Duncan's attorneys had also filed a motion in state court challenging previous denials of his motions for post-conviction relief. This newest state motion was based largely on the state's failure to disclose evidence related to misconduct by Reed and potential misconduct by Peterson. Judges in both district court and the Court of Appeals denied the motion as time-barred, but the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed those courts on January 22, 2010, ordering an evidentiary hearing.
The hearing didn't happen. On January 7, 2011, Duncan struck a deal with the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office, now headed by Cannizzaro. His murder conviction was vacated, and he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter and attempted armed robbery. Duncan received a new sentence of 49 years, but he was released on time served.
While in prison, Duncan had worked as a clerk in the prison law library, making 20 cents an hour, and helping fellow inmates with their appeals. One inmate would later write that Duncan "had the most brilliant legal mind in Angola." Following his release, Duncan played a critical role in helping attorneys gather evidence and frame arguments for a challenge to Louisiana's use of non-unanimous juries. The U.S. Supreme Court barred these verdicts in 2020, although it later clarified that the ruling didn't apply retroactively. Oregon and Louisiana had been the only two states that allowed these verdicts.
Separately, Duncan enrolled in and graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans in 2018. He then received a law degree in 2023 from Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.
In 2021, after Cannizzaro did not run for reelection, Jason Williams became the new district attorney for Orleans Parish. That year, the Louisiana State Legislature enacted a law allowing persons who had pled guilty to challenge their convictions if they had evidence of innocence that was never presented in court.
The law took effect on August 1, 2021, and Duncan's attorneys filed a motion to vacate his conviction on July 26, 2021. The motion said that Duncan never had a chance for a court to hear his evidence of innocence, and that he took the plea deal because it was the surest path to release from prison. It also said that the convictions for manslaughter and attempted armed robbery, if allowed to stand, would likely prevent his admission to the bar after his graduation from law school.
On August 3, 2021, Judge Nandi Campbell of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court vacated Duncan's conviction. She wrote: "Given the State's prior suppression of evidence relating to the Oregon officers' possible criminal activity, the inconsistencies of the minor's eyewitness identification, Mr. Duncan's alibi bolstered by the Defense's post-trial discovery of Mr. Duncan's cousin's birth certificate, and Mr. Duncan's extensive service and numerous contributions to the community post-release, the sentence imposed on January 7, 2011 is unconstitutionally excessive."
After Judge Campbell's ruling, the state dismissed the charges against Duncan.
Duncan's memoir, The Jailhouse Lawyer, written with Sophie Cull, was published in July 2025. In November 2025, Duncan was elected clerk of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court.
