The Louisiana Supreme Court early Friday issued a stay on Attorney General Liz Murrill’s indictment by a New Orleans grand jury, pausing her criminal charges and excoriating what one justice termed a “quagmire” of irregularities surrounding the case.
Murrill, a Republican, was charged Thursday with 16 felony counts of malfeasance in office and intimidation over letters she sent in May to several New Orleans officials, which warned that they had put their positions in jeopardy by opposing a new state law consolidating the city’s criminal and district clerks of court.
Attorney General Liz Murrill announces arrest made in Operation Restricted Domain while surrounded by law enforcement partners during a press conference at the Louisiana Department of Justice on Monday, May 18, 2026 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Staff photo by Michael Johnson
Murrill filed an emergency request Thursday evening for the state Supreme Court to review the indictment that was returned in a closed courtroom at New Orleans’ Criminal District Court. Her attorneys’ filing asked the state’s high court to either quash the indictment or stay the proceedings.
In a remarkable move that one dissenting justice and legal observers said would almost never befall a typical defendant, the Supreme Court issued its stay Friday morning after weighing what the three-page order calls a laundry list of issues with the indictment. The order points to alleged conflicts of interest in the prosecution, allegations of politically-tinged grand jury tampering and a chaotic courthouse scene during the indictment’s return that the high court said raised serious transparency questions.
The order also notes how the Supreme Court just recently upheld the new law consolidating the city’s clerkships, which eliminated the position won by former life prisoner and criminal clerk-elect Calvin Duncan. That law — and, before it, Duncan’s political candidacy for the criminal clerkship — had spawned a back-and-forth battle between Republican state officials and Democratic city leaders that culminated Thursday with Murrill facing charges.
Laura Rodrigue Cannizzaro, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s attorney, speaks outside the Orleans Criminal District Court building in New Orleans, Thursday, July 2, 2026.
“While the record before this Court is undeveloped, there is considerable support for the view that the Attorney General is likely to succeed on the merits of a motion to quash this indictment on either a legal basis or due to apparent procedural irregularities,” the justices wrote in an unsigned opinion on behalf of the court. “She obviously also suffers irreparable harm by allowing this matter to proceed without these important issues being addressed.”
The Supreme Court issued the stay with a five-member majority. The decision drew dissents from Chief Justice John Weimer and Justice John Michael Guidry. Justices in the majority also noted that the stay did not reach the merits of the case.
The pause on Murrill’s criminal indictment represents a swift victory for the attorney general after what amounted to an extraordinary escalation in the months-long feud between state and city leaders.
“This matter is not over,” Murrill said in a statement Friday morning. “I will still need to file the necessary motions to seek a dismissal, which will be forthcoming. I want to thank the many friends and supporters who have expressed their support and encouragement.”
The attorney general said she hopes “this political witch hunt is not a harbinger of things to come, but I fear that it is,” describing the special prosecutor, judge and grand jury in the case as “rogue, biased and vindictive.”
In their dissents, Weimer and Guidry both expressed concerns that the high court had skipped over its usual process to jump into a high-profile case facing a prominent state official.
“There is no exigency that exists here that is not faced by every other indicted citizen,” Guidry wrote. “This is not supposed to be how the system works.”
‘Rapidly escalating quagmire’
After the indictment was returned, Murrill’s attorney, Laura Cannizzaro Rodrigue, alleged in a press conference and in filings to the Supreme Court that the grand jury process was beset by leaks and political interference.
“An Orleans Parish grand jury — apparently originally impaneled in the ordinary course of judicial operations — has been co-opted by political actors for political purposes, in an effort to make news and interfere with the attorney general’s ability to carry out her duties,” Rodrigue wrote to the Supreme Court.
Special prosecutor Laurie White walks down the stairs of the Orleans Criminal District Court building to announce the indictment of Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill in New Orleans, Thursday, July 2, 2026.
The Supreme Court’s order suggests the court accepted much of Rodrigue’s argument. While it is unusual for the high court to intervene this early in a case, the justices wrote that they have the authority to act “when the issues presented are extraordinary in nature.”
“This indictment appears to turn the law on its head and flows from what appear to be extraordinary procedural defects and improprieties,” the order reads.
The justices in the majority criticized the appointment of a special prosecutor, retired judge Laurie White, who they wrote was conflicted in the proceeding because the attorney general’s office represents White in a sexual harassment claim dating to her tenure on the bench. White previously represented Duncan, a former jailhouse lawyer freed from prison after a judge found him innocent, before his case was taken over by the Innocence Project.
Those conflicts of interest “should have been obvious,” the Supreme Court’s order reads.
Writing in a concurrence, Justice Jay McCallum wrote that the allegations in Murrill’s filings were troubling.
“If they prove to be even partially accurate, then additional proceedings before the newly reconstituted Judiciary Commission and Office of Disciplinary Counsel will no doubt become necessary,” he said, referencing the offices that discipline judges and attorneys.
Justice Piper Griffin wrote in a concurrence that she shared Guidry’s concerns about whether a true emergency existed, but that issuing a stay that does not reach the merits of the case “allows this Court to ultimately resolve this rapidly escalating quagmire.”
Closed-door process
The Supreme Court’s order also lambasts Criminal District Court Judge Leon Roche for shuttering his courtroom as the grand jury returned the indictment, and court security officers of the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office for handcuffing and detaining news reporters who pointed to state law that calls for grand jury returns in open court.
“By all public accounts the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court violated express provisions of state law requiring that grand jury returns occur in the public eye, ‘in open court,’” the order reads, citing Article 383 of Louisiana’s Code of Criminal Procedure. “Numerous media outlets have stated that reporters were handcuffed and removed from these otherwise public proceedings.”
WWL-TV producer Danny Monteverde and a lawyer representing his station, Elana Beiser, were handcuffed and briefly detained while reporters waited in the hallway to reenter Roche’s courtroom during grand jury returns. Monteverde and other news reporters had objected to the closed nature of the proceedings, and Beiser had come with a printed motion for Roche to reopen the courtroom.
Judicial administrator Rob Kazik referred multiple requests for comment about the deputies’ actions to Orleans Parish Sheriff’s spokesperson Keith Lampkin, who did not respond to a request for comment. On Friday, a Sheriff’s Office spokesperson did not immediately respond to an additional request for comment.
Gov. Jeff Landry thanked the Supreme Court for the order in a social media post on Friday after saying Thursday that he would pardon Murrill if she were convicted. He described the press arrests, leaks and “disclosure of confidential information” as disturbing.
“These type of abuses and misuse of public monies to carry out this illegal proceeding is an example of why New Orleans is in a budget crisis,” the governor wrote. “Instead of spending money to prosecute thugs, you spend money to prosecute the prosecutor. Ridiculous!”
Murrill’s indictment spurred frenzied reaction among political and legal watchers. Some shared Weimer and Guidry’s concerns about the inconsistency between her treatment versus that of most other criminal defendants.
“The lower courts are not inferior courts meant only for those without means or title or prestige,” Weimer wrote in his dissent.
Craig Mordock, a defense lawyer who practices frequently in New Orleans criminal court, wrote on social media that the Supreme Court’s stay presents another stunning development: Rarely, if ever, does a “regular” defendant “get the Supreme Court reaching down to halt the case the day after indictment,” Mordock wrote.
“However, the Court didn’t invent these facts,” Mordock said. “Orleans Parish handed them this clown show. When you read what the stay actually rests on, this isn’t special treatment for a powerful defendant and is the only tool left to address defects nobody below bothered to think through.”
Staff writer Justin Mitchell contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
