Politics

Moving on from St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner

Published

2 years ago

May 11, 2023

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The number of prosecutors currently working for St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner is in flux.Most reports indicate there are fewer than 10 assistant circuit attorneys handling serious criminal cases in the city. One prosecutor who left recently, Christopher Desiltes, had a caseload of more than 100 when he resigned. His inability to be in two courtrooms at once led a judge to move to hold him and Gardner in criminal contempt.Regardless of what’s causing it, the staffing crisis in the office has continued serious implications across the criminal justice system. Here’s what some with direct experience working in the system have to say as Gardner prepares to leave office on June 1:The prosecutorsFormer Assistant Circuit Attorney Patrick Hamacher had no intention of leaving the prosecutor’s office when Gardner took over in 2017, even though he had been hired by her predecessor.“It was a dream job. I loved being a prosecutor, every minute,” said Hamacher, who now handles personal injury cases with the firm Niemeyer, Grebel and Kruse. “I believe myself and many of my former colleagues were excited about having a new circuit attorney and generally believed in the progressive prosecution philosophy.”Hamacher was handling violent crimes like homicides and robberies – complex matters that require a lot of time and effort. And he says during the year he worked under Gardner, his caseload more than doubled, from five homicides and 15 to 20 other violent felonies to at least 15 homicide cases and 40 to 50 other violent felonies when he left in early 2018.“It’s just a numbers game at that point,” he said. “There’s a lot of legal and ethical duties that you have to both victims, families and witnesses in these types of cases. And that caseload is almost impossible to handle.”He said he cannot fathom having more than double that number to handle, as Desilets did when he resigned.

Brian Munoz

St. Louis Public RadioSt. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, center, looks on as staffer Redditt Hudson scolds the media on Feb. 23 during a press conference regarding calls for her resignation at the Mel Carnahan Courthouse in downtown St. Louis.

Gardner made no mention of crippling caseloads in her statement announcing her resignation, which came as the Missouri attorney general was trying to oust her. Instead she talked about “an onslaught of public records requests that no office in the country could reasonably fulfill, along with attacks on our hard-working line attorneys designed to demoralize these public servants.” But others have taken notice.In his petition to remove Gardner from office, Bailey cited “unmanageable workloads” as an example of the circuit attorney knowingly neglecting her duties.Bailey wrote of an assistant circuit attorney who “has had three medical events, including two seizures in court,” and whose “medical events were exacerbated by stress resulting from the cases assigned to him.”And in ordering Gardner and Desilets, her former assistant, to face criminal contempt charges, Circuit Judge Michael Noble wrote that Gardner had failed to help her staff manage caseloads that lead to conflicts and stress.“Any prudent practitioner would expect such a caseload to create countless irreconcilable conflicts,” the judge said. “It appears that Ms. Gardner has a complete indifference to, and a conscious disregard of, the judicial process.”The public defenders

David Kovaluk | St. Louis Public Radio

Before she was named the Missouri state public defender in 2020, Mary Fox, shown shortly after her appointment, spent nearly 15 years in courtrooms in St. Louis as the head of that office. “For the city of St. Louis, and the circuit attorney’s office, this is the lowest number that I have ever seen in that office,” she says.

Before she was appointed the Missouri state public defender in 2020, Mary Fox spent nearly 15 years in and out of courtrooms in St. Louis as the head of the office’s St. Louis district. So she is extremely familiar with the ebbs and flows of staffing in the circuit attorney’s office.“For the city of St. Louis, and the circuit attorney’s office, this is the lowest number that I have ever seen in that office,” she says of the current headcount of prosecutors handling cases in one of the busiest circuit courts in the state.The COVID-19 pandemic created a backlog that most courts across the country are struggling to clear, Fox said, but the “limited number of prosecutors” make it harder to do so in St. Louis.“The case just stalls, it just sits,” she said. “What happens to a member of our community, when they are incarcerated, they lose contact with their family, they lose contact with their employment, they lose contact with their community, and they don’t add anything positive to the community.”The results of those delays could also be seen in uprisings at the City Justice Center downtown, Fox said.The comments about overwhelming caseloads make Fox both “smile and frown” – they’ve always been a complaint of public defenders. (In 2016, Fox’s predecessor as state public defender, Michael Barrett, appointed then-Gov. Jay Nixon as the attorney on a criminal case to make his point. The Missouri Supreme Court eventually ruled Barrett could not assign Nixon.)“Yeah, I was having flashbacks,” she said. “And I was happy to see that people are concerned about this. But I want to make certain that that concern goes to both sides.”The judges

Robert Cohen

Pool PhotoJudge Michael Noble calls the circuit attorney’s office “a rudderless ship of chaos” on April 27 as he holds a contempt of court hearing against St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner at the Mel Carnahan Courthouse in downtown St. Louis.

In a statement on the day Gardner announced her resignation, the judges of the 22nd Circuit said they remained committed to serving the city and stood ready to work with the next circuit attorney, who they hoped could “restore stability” to the office.“However, the judges of the 22nd Judicial Circuit remain deeply concerned about the high volume of serious criminal cases scheduled for trial in the coming weeks without assigned prosecutors,” the statement continued. A spokesman said they would not be available for further comment.On a recent morning, the balancing act judges have to strike between the rights of defendants and the perceived risk to public safety was apparent.Sturgeon Stewart, 51, was set to go on trial for 12 felony counts related to a 2020 home invasion that left two people dead. He has been in jail since he was arrested in August of that year, and prosecutors had already dropped and refiled the case once because they could not get DNA results back from the lab in time.The May 9 date was also a delay – Circuit Judge Rex Burlison granted a continuance on April 24 because the primary investigating witness was on leave from the St. Louis police department.Then the prosecutor assigned to the case, Desilets, resigned May 1, and a special prosecutor, Rufus Tate, had yet to officially take over. A member of Gardner’s staff who appeared on behalf of the circuit attorney’s office asked for another continuance because the state was not ready to proceed.Stewart’s attorney, Adofo Minka, told Burlison that he was prepared to go to trial and that the judge should dismiss for failure to prosecute.Burlison said the police account of the crime, along with forensic, video and ballistic evidence, meant he was “not of the mind” to dismiss the case and release Stewart. But he made it clear that prosecutors had to be ready to go to trial the week of May 22.“These cases have to move,” he said.Fox, the state public defender, wishes the judges would dismiss more cases.“We may say we’re protecting the community from dangerous folks,” she said. “But we don’t know whether or not that person is guilty until there’s either been a finding of guilt or a plea of guilty. And we’re locking people up for years without that finding.”The victim advocatesKatie Dalton still finds the criminal legal system confusing, even after 10 years as the CEO of the Crime Victim Center. And she knows it’s even more confusing for people who have been forced to interact with the system due to an act of violence.“Court delays are always something that happens,” she said. “It takes years for people to get prosecuted. But I think there’s been just extreme delays even further past that in the last couple of years.”Some of the delays can be explained by COVID-related shutdowns, Dalton said. But lately, the frequent turnover of prosecutors on a case means each new one needs time to review the file and be ready to move forward. That often leads to multiple requests for delays.“I think there are people that are absolutely frustrated with the system and, and are wanting to kind of give up on it,” Dalton said. “But with the transition, I’m trying to tell them to maybe have a little bit more hope, because we’re going to get some new people looking at that office who hopefully will get some cases to fruition.”The police

Brian Munoz

St. Louis Public Radio St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department squad cars sit at Central Patrol in October 2021 in St. Louis.

The start of any criminal case in the 22nd Circuit is an investigation by St. Louis police. But after the initial arrest, the case can only move forward with the help of the circuit attorney.Before COVID, police would apply for charges at the office in person. The pandemic shifted that to an email inbox. But as the rest of the court system began to open up, applications for warrants stayed virtual.“I think at some point, it shifted from not being COVID anymore to just being that they don’t have the personnel to handle the case volume,” said Jay Schroeder, president of the St. Louis Police Officers Association.According to Schroeder, there are around 4,000 cases in a status known as “pending application of warrants.” That means police have identified a suspect and made that initial arrest but are still waiting for charges to be officially filed. Sometimes, depending on the severity of the crime, individuals are released in the interim.“They just get emboldened,” Schroeder said. “They’re like: ‘Well, I’ll just get arrested, I’ll be out in a few hours, and then I’ll go back to doing whatever I do.’ And it’s made the victims and the city feel helpless.”Gardner and the police have been at odds since she was first elected in 2017. She sued the union in 2020, alleging a racist conspiracy against her agenda. The suit was later dismissed. And according to an audio recording of a staff meeting on the day she resigned provided to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, she blamed some of the delays on the police.“I know we don’t get things on time from law enforcement,” she said.The reformers

Brian Munoz

St. Louis Public RadioAndrea Hall, 54, of north St. Louis, rallies against the trend of judges and Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s office lack of using bail in the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court on April 24 outside the Mel Carnahan Courthouse in downtown St. Louis.

Gardner twice won the post of circuit attorney on pledges of reform in the criminal legal system, promising an increased focus on diversion programs and new systems to hold police officers accountable.“Under my leadership, this office has made tremendous strides in redefining public safety,” she wrote in her resignation announcement. “We have achieved so many important victories together.”But even before the current staffing crisis, those who on the surface shared Gardner’s goals of reducing the harm of the criminal legal system were raising questions. A 2022 report from the Freedom Community Center found her office requested that someone be held in jail without bail in 88% of the more than 1,500 detention hearings they watched.The problem, they said, got worse after a February 2023 car crash, which resulted in a teen losing her legs, set off the current spiral.The lack of bail, and the delays caused by staffing shortages, means more people are spending more time in “atrocious conditions” at the downtown jail known as the Criminal Justice Center, said Amy Breihan, the director of the Missouri office of the MacArthur Justice Center, a nonprofit legal firm.“It means that they might be or feel pressured to take a plea deal that they otherwise wouldn’t take, in order to just get transferred out of the jail,” she added.Reformers are always aware that a “prosecutor is a cop,” Breihan said, and therefore had realistic expectations of what Gardner could do. But they are also left to wonder whether Gardner’s tumultuous last months in office will make it harder to convince people of the need to reform the criminal legal system.“I think the direct answer is possibly, but I certainly hope not,” Breihan said. “One thing that it certainly highlights is the tremendous amount of power that a prosecuting attorney has over who to charge and when, for what, and over the incarceration of people in our community.”

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Politics

Poll: Support for Missouri abortion rights amendment growing

Published

9 months ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A proposed constitutional amendment legalizing abortion in Missouri received support from more than half of respondents in a new poll from St. Louis University and YouGov.That’s a boost from a poll earlier this year, which could mean what’s known as Amendment 3 is in a solid position to pass in November.SLU/YouGov’s poll of 900 likely Missouri voters from Aug. 8-16 found that 52% of respondents would vote for Amendment 3, which would place constitutional protections for abortion up to fetal viability. Thirty-four percent would vote against the measure, while 14% aren’t sure.By comparison, the SLU/YouGov poll from February found that 44% of voters would back the abortion legalization amendment.St. Louis University political science professor Steven Rogers said 32% of Republicans and 53% of independents would vote for the amendment. That’s in addition to nearly 80% of Democratic respondents who would approve the measure. In the previous poll, 24% of Republicans supported the amendment.Rogers noted that neither Amendment 3 nor a separate ballot item raising the state’s minimum wage is helping Democratic candidates. GOP contenders for U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer and secretary of state all hold comfortable leads.“We are seeing this kind of crossover voting, a little bit, where there are voters who are basically saying, ‘I am going to the polls and I’m going to support a Republican candidate, but I’m also going to go to the polls and then I’m also going to try to expand abortion access and then raise the minimum wage,’” Rogers said.Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Kehoe has a 51%-41% lead over Democrat Crystal Quade. And U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is leading Democrat Lucas Kunce by 53% to 42%. Some GOP candidates for attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer have even larger leads over their Democratic rivals.

Brian Munoz

St. Louis Public RadioHundreds of demonstrators pack into a parking lot at Planned Parenthood of St. Louis and Southwest Missouri on June 24, 2022, during a demonstration following the Supreme Court’s reversal of a case that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion.

One of the biggest challenges for foes of Amendment 3 could be financial.Typically, Missouri ballot initiatives with well-funded and well-organized campaigns have a better chance of passing — especially if the opposition is underfunded and disorganized. Since the end of July, the campaign committee formed to pass Amendment 3 received more than $3 million in donations of $5,000 or more.That money could be used for television advertisements to improve the proposal’s standing further, Rogers said, as well as point out that Missouri’s current abortion ban doesn’t allow the procedure in the case of rape or incest.“Meanwhile, the anti side won’t have those resources to kind of try to make that counter argument as strongly, and they don’t have public opinion as strongly on their side,” Rogers said.There is precedent of a well-funded initiative almost failing due to opposition from socially conservative voters.In 2006, a measure providing constitutional protections for embryonic stem cell research nearly failed — even though a campaign committee aimed at passing it had a commanding financial advantage.Former state Sen. Bob Onder was part of the opposition campaign to that measure. He said earlier this month it is possible to create a similar dynamic in 2024 against Amendment 3, if social conservatives who oppose abortion rights can band together.“This is not about reproductive rights or care for miscarriages or IVF or anything else,” said Onder, the GOP nominee for Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District seat. “Missourians will learn that out-of-state special interests and dark money from out of state is lying to them and they will reject this amendment.”Quade said earlier this month that Missourians of all political ideologies are ready to roll back the state’s abortion ban.“Regardless of political party, we hear from folks who are tired of politicians being in their doctor’s offices,” Quade said. “They want politicians to mind their own business. So this is going to excite folks all across the political spectrum.”

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Democrat Mark Osmack makes his case for Missouri treasurer

Published

9 months ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Mark Osmack has been out of the electoral fray for awhile, but he never completely abandoned his passion for Missouri politics.Osmack, a Valley Park native and U.S. Army veteran, previously ran for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District seat and for state Senate. Now he’s the Democratic nominee for state treasurer after receiving a phone call from Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Russ Carnahan asking him to run.“There’s a lot of decision making and processing and evaluation that goes into it, which is something I am very passionate and interested in,” Osmack said this week on an episode of Politically Speaking.Osmack is squaring off against state Treasurer Vivek Malek, who was able to easily win a crowded GOP primary against several veteran lawmakers including House Budget Chairman Cody Smith and state Sen. Andrew Koenig.While Malek was able to attract big donations to his political action committee and pour his own money into the campaign, Osmack isn’t worried that he won’t be able to compete in November. Since Malek was appointed to his post, Osmack contends he hasn’t proven that he’s a formidable opponent in a general election.“His actions and his decision making so far in his roughly two year tenure in that office have been questionable,” Osmack said.Among other things, Osmack was critical of Malek for placing unclaimed property notices on video gaming machines which are usually found in gas stations or convenience stores. The legality of the machines has been questioned for some time.As Malek explained on his own episode of Politically Speaking, he wanted to make sure the unclaimed property program was as widely advertised as possible. But he acknowledged it was a mistake to put the decals close to the machines and ultimately decided to remove them.Osmack said: “This doesn’t even pass the common sense sniff test of, ‘Hey, should I put state stickers claiming you might have a billion dollars on a gambling machine that is not registered with the state of Missouri?’ If we’re gonna give kudos for him acknowledging the wrong thing, it never should have been done in the first place.”Osmack’s platform includes supporting programs providing school meals using Missouri agriculture products and making child care more accessible for the working class.He said the fact that Missouri has such a large surplus shows that it’s possible to create programs to make child care within reach for parents.“It is quite audacious for [Republicans] to brag about $8 billion, with a B, dollars in state surplus, while we offer next to no social services to include pre-K, daycare, or child care,” Osmack said.Here’s are some other topics Osmack discussed on the show:How he would handle managing the state’s pension systems and approving low-income housing tax credits. The state treasurer’s office is on boards overseeing both of those programs.Malek’s decision to cut off investments from Chinese companies. Osmack said that Missouri needs to be cautious about abandoning China as a business partner, especially since they’re a major consumer of the state’s agriculture products. “There’s a way to make this work where we are not supporting communist nations to the detriment of the United States or our allies, while also maintaining strong economic ties that benefit Missouri farmers,” he said.What it was like to witness the skirmish at the Missouri State Fair between U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic challenger Lucas Kunce.Whether Kunce can get the support of influential groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which often channels money and staff to states with competitive Senate elections.

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As Illinois receives praise for its cannabis equity efforts, stakeholders work on system’s flaws

Published

9 months ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Medical marijuana patients can now purchase cannabis grown by small businesses as part of their allotment, Illinois’ top cannabis regulator said, but smaller, newly licensed cannabis growers are still seeking greater access to the state’s medical marijuana customers.Illinois legalized medicinal marijuana beginning in 2014, then legalized it for recreational use in 2020. While the 2020 law legalized cannabis use for any adult age 21 or older, it did not expand licensing for medical dispensaries.Patients can purchase marijuana as part of the medical cannabis program at dual-purpose dispensaries, which are licensed to serve both medical and recreational customers. But dual-purpose dispensaries are greatly outnumbered by dispensaries only licensed to sell recreationally, and there are no medical-only dispensaries in the state.As another part of the adult-use legalization law, lawmakers created a “craft grow” license category that was designed to give more opportunities to Illinoisans hoping to legally grow and sell marijuana. The smaller-scale grow operations were part of the 2020 law’s efforts to diversify the cannabis industry in Illinois.Prior to that, all cultivation centers in Illinois were large-scale operations dominated by large multi-state operators. The existing cultivators, mostly in operation since 2014, were allowed to grow recreational cannabis beginning in 2019.Until recently, dual-purpose dispensaries have been unsure as to whether craft-grown products, made by social equity licensees — those who have lived in a disproportionately impacted area or have been historically impacted by the war on drugs — can be sold medicinally as part of a patient’s medical allotment.Erin Johnson, the state’s cannabis regulation oversight officer, told Capitol News Illinois last month that her office has “been telling dispensaries, as they have been asking us” they can now sell craft-grown products to medical patients.“There was just a track and trace issue on our end, but never anything statutorily,” she said.

Dilpreet Raju

Capitol News IllinoisThe graphic shows how cannabis grown in Illinois gets from cultivation centers to customers.

No notice has been posted, but Johnson’s verbal guidance comes almost two years after the first craft grow business went online in Illinois.It allows roughly 150,000 medical patients, who dispensary owners say are the most consistent purchasers of marijuana, to buy products made by social equity businesses without paying recreational taxes. However — even as more dispensaries open — the number available to medical patients has not increased since 2018, something the Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office “desperately” wants to see changed. Johnson said Illinois is a limited license state, meaning “there are caps on everything” to help control the relatively new market.Berwyn Thompkins, who operates two cannabis businesses, said the rules limited options for patients and small businesses.“It’s about access,” Thompkins said. “Why wouldn’t we want all the patients — which the (adult-use) program was initially built around — why wouldn’t we want them to have access? They should have access to any dispensary.”Customers with a medical marijuana card pay a 1% tax on all marijuana products, whereas recreational customers pay retail taxes between roughly 20 and 40% on a given cannabis product, when accounting for local taxes.While Illinois has received praise for its equity-focused cannabis law, including through an independent study that showed more people of color own cannabis licenses than in any other state, some industry operators say they’ve experienced many unnecessary hurdles getting their businesses up and running.The state, in fact, announced last month that it had opened its 100th social equity dispensary.But Steve Olson, purchasing manager at a pair of dispensaries (including one dual-purpose dispensary) near Rockford, said small specialty license holders have been left in the lurch since the first craft grower opened in October 2022.“You would think that this would be something they’re (the government) trying to help out these social equity companies with, but they’re putting handcuffs on them in so many different spots,” he said. “One of them being this medical thing.”Olson said he contacted state agencies, including the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, months ago about whether craft products can be sold to medical patients at their retail tax rate, but only heard one response: “They all say it was an oversight.”This potentially hurt social equity companies because they sell wholesale to dispensaries and may have been missing out on a consistent customer base through those medical dispensaries.Olson said the state’s attempts to provide licensees with a path to a successful business over the years, such as with corrective lotteries that granted more social equity licenses, have come up short.“It’s like they almost set up the social equity thing to fail so the big guys could come in and swoop up all these licenses,” Olson said. “I hate to feel like that but, if you look at it, it’s pretty black and white.”Olson said craft companies benefit from any type of retail sale.“If we sell it to medical patients or not, it’s a matter of, ‘Are we collecting the proper taxes?’ That’s all it is,” he said.State revenue from cannabis taxes, licensing costs and other fees goes into the Cannabis Regulation Fund, which is used to fund a host of programs, including cannabis offense expungement, the general revenue fund, and the R3 campaign aiming to uplift disinvested communities.For fiscal year 2024, nearly $256 million was paid out from Cannabis Regulation Fund for related initiatives, which includes almost $89 million transferred to the state’s general revenue fund and more than $20 million distributed to local governments, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue.Medical access still limitedThe state’s 55 medical dispensaries that predate the 2020 legalization law, mostly owned by publicly traded multistate operators that had been operating in Illinois since 2014 under the state’s medical marijuana program, were automatically granted a right to licenses to sell recreationally in January 2020. That gave them a dual-purpose license that no new entrants into the market can receive under current law.Since expanding their clientele in 2020, Illinois dispensaries have sold more than $6 billion worth of cannabis products through recreational transactions alone.Nearly two-thirds of dispensaries licensed to sell to medical patients are in the northeast counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will. Dual-purpose dispensaries only represent about 20 percent of the state’s dispensaries.While the state began offering recreational dispensary licenses since the adult-use legalization law passed, it has not granted a new medical dispensary license since 2018. That has allowed the established players to continue to corner the market on the state’s nearly 150,000 medical marijuana patients.But social equity licensees and advocates say there are more ways to level the playing field, including expanding access to medical sales.Johnson, who became the state’s top cannabis regulator in late 2022, expressed hope for movement during the fall veto session on House Bill 2911, which would expand medical access to all Illinois dispensaries.“We would like every single dispensary in Illinois to be able to serve medical patients,” Johnson said. “It’s something that medical patients have been asking for, for years.”Johnson said the bill would benefit patients and small businesses.“It’s something we desperately want to happen as a state system, because we want to make sure that medical patients are able to easily access what they need,” she said. “We also think it’s good for our social equity dispensaries, as they’re opening, to be able to serve medical patients.”Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, who was the first statewide project coordinator for Illinois’ medical cannabis program prior to joining the legislature, wrote in an email to Capitol News Illinois that the state needs to be doing more for its patients.“Illinois is failing the state’s 150,000 medical cannabis patients with debilitating conditions. Too many are still denied the patient protections they deserve, including access to their medicine,” Morgan wrote, adding he would continue to work with stakeholders on further legislation.Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.

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