Louisiana Supreme Court to weigh in on Orleans court clerk controversy

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The Louisiana Supreme Court will weigh challenges to a controversial law that merged New Orleans’ civil and criminal court clerks’ offices and set off a political firestorm.

In the meantime, the court endorsed Chelsey Richard Napoleon, the civil clerk anointed by the Legislature under Act 15, to run a unified clerk’s office, and barred the City Council’s interim choice, Calvin Johnson, from power.

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The court on Thursday asked for briefings by next week under a sped-up schedule for deciding the constitutionality of Act 15, and if it’s legal, whether it created a vacancy that required the New Orleans City Council on Monday to back an election and appoint an interim court clerk.

Johnson is barred from “exercising any duties pursuant to his appointment by the New Orleans City Council,” judges wrote.

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