In Move Raising Race, Gender, and Political Issues, Missouri Governor Seeks Authority for Attorney General to Prosecute St. Louis Homicide Cases

In a polit­i­cal maneu­ver that fur­ther inject­ed issues of race, gen­der, and polit­i­cal dis­en­fran­chise­ment into local law enforce­ment pol­i­cy, Missouri’s Republican Governor Mike Parson has asked state law­mak­ers to grant Republican state attor­ney gen­er­al Eric Schmitt author­i­ty to pros­e­cute mur­der cas­es in the city of St. Louis. The pro­pos­al tar­get­ed cas­es that are cur­rent­ly under the exclu­sive purview of Democratic St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, the state’s only Black female cir­cuit pros­e­cu­tor, and esca­lat­ed the clash between the reform pros­e­cu­tor and the hard-line conservative governor.

Parson sought to have leg­is­la­tors insert his ​“con­cur­rent juris­dic­tion” plan into a omnibus bill under con­sid­er­a­tion in a spe­cial leg­isla­tive ses­sion on crime. Instead, the pro­pos­al drew crit­i­cism from leg­is­la­tors and local pros­e­cu­tors that slowed leg­isla­tive con­sid­er­a­tion of oth­er parts of the governor’s crime plan. Although Parson claimed the bill was intend­ed to reduce the mur­der rate in St. Louis, the gov­er­nor had nei­ther con­sult­ed with Gardner to see if she need­ed assis­tance nor pro­vid­ed her advance notice of the plan.

“[I]t is clear that this leg­is­la­tion is not actu­al­ly about address­ing crime,“ Gardner said in a state­ment. “[I]nstead it serves as a vehi­cle to inter­fere with the clear dis­cre­tion of a demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed local pros­e­cu­tor. This allows the Governor and his cronies to make a mock­ery of judi­cial checks and bal­ances and demol­ish­es any notion of a free and inde­pen­dent judi­cial sys­tem,” she said. 

While not specif­i­cal­ly address­ing Parson’s pro­pos­al to take author­i­ty from Gardner, the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys on August 12 issued a state­ment signed by the association’s exec­u­tive board that sup­port­ed the auton­o­my of local pros­e­cu­tors. ​“Holding true to the posi­tion we as an asso­ci­a­tion have held for decades,” the state­ment said, “[we] stand unit­ed against any pro­pos­al to vest any new orig­i­nal or con­cur­rent juris­dic­tion with the Attorney General. … The best con­trol is local con­trol,” the pros­e­cu­tors’ association said.

Social jus­tice activist Shaun King accused Republicans of try­ing to sub­vert Gardner, who recent­ly defeat­ed a police-sup­port­ed for­mer pros­e­cu­tor to win renom­i­na­tion for cir­cuit attor­ney in her high­ly Democratic dis­trict. ​“They want to undo the elec­toral out­come because their cho­sen law enforce­ment can­di­date was not elect­ed by the peo­ple,” King said.

Missouri’s Democratic House Minority Leader Crystal Quade also viewed Parson’s maneu­ver as an attempt to dis­en­fran­chise local offi­cials. ​“By now try­ing to strip her of the pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al dis­cre­tion and author­i­ty enjoyed by every oth­er pros­e­cu­tor in the state, the gov­er­nor attacks democ­ra­cy itself,” Quade said. ​“Lawmakers must not become co-con­spir­a­tors in the governor’s polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed abuse of power.” 

Parson’s action came short­ly after President Trump had com­plained that Gardner had filed felony charges against a white cou­ple who had point­ed assault weapons at demon­stra­tors who were march­ing past their home dur­ing a peace­ful protest against racial inequal­i­ty. Parson had told Trump that it would be dif­fi­cult to remove Gardner from office. Though one Republican sen­a­tor who crit­i­cized Gardner sug­gest­ed the Governor should have author­i­ty to remove pros­e­cu­tors from office, the attack on Gardner has tem­porar­i­ly stalled the governor’s crime bill. 

Missouri House Republican lead­ers issued a joint state­ment say­ing they would no longer pur­sue an omnibus crime bill, but would divide the leg­is­la­tion into a series of sep­a­rate bills. ​“Given the fact the gov­er­nor expand­ed the call as one of our com­mit­tees was con­sid­er­ing the bill he orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed, we think it’s impor­tant to take a step back and give addi­tion­al thought and atten­tion to each part of the plan,” their statement said.

Gardner, who is St. Louis’s first Black pros­e­cu­tor, was first elect­ed Circuit Attorney in 2016 as part of a pio­neer­ing first wave of reform pros­e­cu­tors and eas­i­ly won renom­i­na­tion with 61% of the vote. She point­ed to a nation­wide pat­tern of retal­i­a­tion by white elect­ed offi­cials against pol­i­cy deci­sions made by elect­ed black women. Those deci­sions, she said, are ​“chal­lenged every step of the way when African American female pros­e­cu­tors come into office.” 

In Florida, then-Governor Rick Scott, a white Republican, removed Aramis Ayala, the first Black woman elect­ed as a State Attorney, from near­ly two dozen pend­ing mur­der cas­es after she announced that her office would not seek the death penal­ty in mur­der pros­e­cu­tions. Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore City’s State’s Attorney, received death threats when she pros­e­cut­ed six police offi­cers who were involved with the death of Freddie Gray. In Chicago, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has received crit­i­cism for not charg­ing pro­tes­tors in the wake of George Floyd’s death who were protest­ing after cur­few and not dis­pers­ing when ordered by the police.