New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams has been “invited” to address a state Senate committee Thursday to explain his policy of helping people convicted years ago get reduced sentences by pleading guilty to reduced charges. Williams has accepted the invitation.
If you’ve ever tried to picture Daniel walking into the lions’ den, watch the livestream or the video archive of the Senate Judiciary “C” Committee hearing. It should be quite a show; only this time no angel will shut the mouths of the lions. They fully intend to roar.
Williams’ policy of revisiting old cases that he believes were not adjudicated fairly has caught the attention of conservative lawmakers and tough-on-crime state Attorney General Liz Murrill. They express concern about the frequency of Williams supporting defendants’ requests for “post-conviction relief.”
Many DAs occasionally agree to review past convictions when new evidence suggests that justice was not done. Post-conviction relief is not just legal, it’s often necessary.
Virtually all post-conviction relief efforts begin with motions by defense lawyers. Those that succeed must rely upon established legal bases, and many are not opposed by district attorneys.
Most DAs, however, seldom enter into post-conviction plea deals. As a matter of policy — and politics — they prefer to burnish their tough-on-crime brands rather than risk looking “weak” by showing mercy, even when circumstances cry out for justice.
Williams, on the other hand, champions post-conviction relief. When he ran for DA in 2020, he promised to establish a civil rights division with the express goal of “reckoning with the sins of the past,” particularly those dealing with people convicted by nonunanimous juries.
New Orleans voters gave Williams 58% of the vote based in large measure on that promise, which he kept. His office has supported hundreds of post-conviction relief motions that led to reduced sentences and some releases from prison.
Before he was elected Orleans Parish DA in 2020, Williams made quite a name for himself — and quite a nice living — as a criminal defense attorney. As an at-large New Orleans City Council member for seven years, he often sparred with then-DA Leon Cannizzaro over Cannizzaro’s lock-em-up approach to criminal justice.
In the run-up to the DA’s race, public opinion had turned so strongly against Cannizzaro that he declined to seek reelection to a third term rather than face humiliation at the hands of Williams. Months later, Cannizzaro went to work for then-Attorney General Jeff Landry as Landry’s criminal division chief. He continues in that role under new AG Murrill.
No one can dispute Cannizzaro’s qualifications for that job. He previously served for years as a respected trial court and appellate judge.
One can, however, speculate as to his, Murrill’s and now-Gov. Landry’s motives for supporting a new law that restricts future post-conviction deals. Act 10 of the governor’s special session on crime imposes strict time limits on deals struck years after a conviction — and authorizes Murrill to challenge such deals.
The new law took effect Aug. 1. Williams’ critics claim he accelerated post-conviction deals before that date and is a rogue DA who needs to be reined in. Williams responds that he’s upholding justice, a legal and ethical mandate for all DAs.
“I cannot turn a blind eye when evidence is presented in a court of law to an injustice or violation of the Constitution that must be dealt with,” Williams said. He added that New Orleans for decades had “the highest imprisonment rate, the highest wrongful incarceration rate, the highest life-without-parole rate and the highest exoneration rate of any city in the country.”
Moreover, lawmakers are loath to tread on district attorneys, who are valuable allies at election time.
State Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe and chair of the Senate Judiciary “C” Committee, acknowledged that DAs are concerned about how his committee hearing will play out. Many of them, including Cannizzaro when he was DA, have endorsed post-conviction deals themselves, though far less frequently than Williams.
“The general consensus I’m getting from a lot of DAs is, ‘Whatever you do, please don’t punish us for what Jason’s doing,’” Morris said.
Ultimately, the new post-conviction relief law may face a constitutional challenge. Louisiana's constitution gives district attorneys total discretion in handling prosecutorial matters, and it allows the attorney general to intervene in or take over a local case only if the presiding judge allows it.
In a convoluted 4-3 decision last year, the Louisiana Supreme Court allowed then-AG Landry to successfully attack the constitutionality of a 2021 post-conviction relief statute even though it's the AG's duty to defend the constitutionality of all statutes. Yet, the court stated that district attorneys have “absolute discretion” to support post-conviction relief — when warranted — “because a prosecutor's responsibility is as ‘a minister of justice and not simply that of an advocate.’”
We’ll soon see how the legislative lions feel about that.