NOLA.com21%
New Orleans DA says he doesn't 'want to fight' with governor or AG over dismissed indictment 3%
By Matt Bruce12%
7/30/2026, 4:00:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 8 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Self-Serving Bias, and Appeal to Emotion, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 6.5% saturation with 48 hits. Analysis detected 178 faulty-reasoning hits from 733 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 12.1% and a BS Rank of 3% (22,076 of 22,579 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 97.80% of the article peer group.
More than a week after Attorney General Liz Murrill and Gov.
Jeff Landry lashed out at New Orleans officials over the AG’s recently dismissed indictment, Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams said Thursday the public row hasn’t strained an alliance between his and Murrill’s offices.
“I don’t want to fight with the governor; I don’t want to fight with the AG,” Williams said.
Williams and Murrill finalized a partnership in February 2024 that has empowered the AG’s office to prosecute nearly 1,500 New Orleans cases from arrests made by Louisiana State Police in the city.
Murrill’s prosecutors now handle more than one in five cases at the Orleans Parish criminal courthouse, she said.
But tensions flared this month after a grand jury in the building indicted Murrill on 16 counts of public intimidation and malfeasance in office over letters she sent Williams, Mayor Helena Moreno and other top New Orleans officials in May.
Murrill claimed they were violating the law and said they risked their jobs by calling a special election for a court clerk’s office the Legislature had just consolidated.
Laurie White, the former criminal judge appointed as special prosecutor to handle the grand jury probe, dismissed the charges against Murrill last week.
She cited pleas from Williams, Moreno and the five city council members Murrill was accused of intimidating, asking White to reconsider the charges.
Still, Murrill continued to bristle openly against Williams.
She told the Times-Picayune last week that she’d lost trust in New Orleans leadership and accused them of inciting the indictment.
Murrill issued a subpoena and a separate public records request for Williams’ records while she was under indictment, suggesting that Williams had a hand in the grand jury’s work.
Williams has denied it.
His office was formally recused on June 1.
Murrill has joined Landry in calling for state and federal investigators to probe the grand jury’s actions.
Landry suggested Williams should be stripped of his law license.
Williams on Thursday sought to tamp the flames, telling reporters he wasn’t interested in fueling a political firestorm.
“New Orleans is part of the state of Louisiana.
If New Orleans is hurt, it hurts the state,” Williams said when asked about Landry’s critiques of local leadership.
“I made it very, very clear that I played no role.
I did not initiate or handle any part of that grand jury investigation.”
Williams addressed the recent snipes while announcing convictions by his office in four homicide cases.
He touted a 95% conviction rate in 28 homicide trials his office has prosecuted so far this year.
On July 16, a jury found Brian Plummer, 32, and 34-year-old Carl Newman Jr., guilty of second-degree murder in an October 2022 drive-by that killed Tavion Aples, 30, and wounded a second victim.
The following day, another jury convicted Laura Collins, 39, of manslaughter and obstruction of justice in the hit-and-run death of Lloyd Smith, a bicyclist she struck and killed in Mid-City in January 2020.
Jurors also found her guilty of second-degree murder for strangling her fiance Gerald Robichaux to death a year later.
Then on July 23, Eric Cloud was convicted at trial for killing Angel Funez and Niukura Gonzalez, both 25, during a February 2020 armed robbery when he was 17.
“These verdicts came after years of careful police work, forensic testing, evidence review, victim and witness support and focused preparation by prosecutors, investigators, advocates and trial assistants,” Williams said.
Murrill was not available for comment Thursday.
She downplayed the extent of the chafed relations Wednesday on WSLA 93.9 radio, telling host Kaare Johnson’s “there’s no feud.”
“I have personally devoted a lot of resources, through the Attorney General’s office, to New Orleans and I’m not changing that.
We’re going to continue to be there prosecuting cases and supporting Troop NOLA like we have been for 2 ½ years.”
Williams also said he remained committed to the agreement with Murrill’s office.
“I have had disagreements with the governor; I’ve had disagreements with the AG since they’ve been in office.
We have also come together and built some of the most unprecedented collaborations in the state and city’s history,” he said.
“So we in New Orleans know how to disagree without being disagreeable.
Friendship is not ownership.
You don’t have to agree with what someone says every day.”
Analysis
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