Louisiana Voice: “Calvin Duncan was convicted in January 1985 of first-degree murder. The only thing was, he was innocent. Then Assistant District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro suppressed exculpatory evidence.
It wasn’t until January 2011, after spending nearly 30 years in prison for a crime he never committed, he was allowed to plead guilty to a reduced charge.
But Duncan was that rare individual who, even though incarcerated, worked to better himself and finally, in 2018, he graduated from Tulane University. He then continued with his education, attending the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore.
He, along with Southern University law professor Angela A. Allen Bell, played a critical role in assisting attorneys to gather evidence and frame arguments for a challenge to Louisiana’s use of non-unanimous juries. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 barred such verdicts.
So, armed with an exoneration for having lost three decades of his life and with a law degree in hand … he ran for and was elected to the office of clerk of the Orleans Parish Criminal Court, vowing to reform the justice system.”