My plan to replace Kim Gardner

While I understand and appreciate the efforts of both the Attorney General (AG) and the state legislature to remove Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, I find their efforts problematic.

Any informed, thinking person can only believe she has been a complete disaster as the chief prosecutor for the City. The AG’s amended petition in support of a quo warranto writ simply demonstrates with numbers how poorly the CAO is operating. For example, the courts in the past six years have dismissed 2,735 cases due to the CAO either not providing timely discovery to the defendant or not being ready for trial. For context, that’s more cases than the CAO issued last year! Apparently another 9,000 cases were dismissed by the CAO over the past six years. And, there are around 3,500 warrant applications (i.e., potential cases) that have been awaiting the CAO to decide whether or not to issue charges.

It’s also clear that the number of criminal cases issued by the CAO has precipitously declined: in 2017, 4,498 criminal cases were issued; in 2018, 4,386 cases; in 2019, 3,961 cases; in 2020, 2,155 cases; in 2021, 1,901 cases; and, in 2022, 1,974 cases. St. Louis County, in contrast, issued 10,290 criminal cases in 2022. As the petition points out, this is not because of a dramatic decrease in crime in the City.

From 2017 through 2020, Kim Gardner has “either fired, or accepted the voluntary resignation of at least 85 assistant circuit attorneys.” The very experienced trial staff of over 40 attorneys she inherited from Jennifer Joyce has been replaced by approximately 18 attorneys. In 2017, the salaries for the regular staff of the CAO was $5,143,836.75; in 2022, the salaries for the regular staff was $2,751,103.63. This trend demonstrates the toxicity of the CAO under Gardner. She can’t keep good people. Her mismanagement and the crushing caseloads carried by the assistant circuit attorneys (having fewer than half the needed staff) forces them out. And, as the experience and number of the assistant circuit attorneys decline, so does the overall performance of the office. You can’t take a great sports team, cut the team in half, force out the best players, and expect great results.

Of course the petition goes on to list many other issues — many of which I’ve previously blogged about — however the numbers themselves tell you all you need to know.

However there are serious issues with a quo warranto writ to remove Gardner. I understand the writ to be a device to remove an elected official who is not performing their elected duties. The CAO is running, it is working. Kim Gardner is doing her job. She is just doing it extraordinarily poorly. So, I don’t think the writ should succeed. And even if it did remove her from office, that will just create other problems.

Nor do I think having a second, independent prosecution office in the City (as the legislature intends) is a good idea. Similarly, it would create a whole host of other problems.

The real issue in attempts to remove Gardner is they’re both an ends-justifies-the-means approach. Both the AG and the legislature recognize how bad the situation is with Gardner running the CAO, and they are trying to use whatever means they can to remove her. I totally agree with their assessment of the situation but disagree with their approach.

One of the bedrock principles of law in our country is that the means is more important than the result itself. It seems in this era of political and cultural upheaval we have lost sight of this. How we go about trying to achieve justice, for example, is more important than any individual result. Once we start rigging the system to get the results we want, there will no longer be justice.

So, my plan to remove Kim Gardner is this: vote her out of office. I think this is the only legitimate way to remove her. Yes, the City will pay a price until we do vote her out. That is called “accountability.” We voted her in. Now we have to pay for our stupidity. Thomas Jefferson observed, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”