To avoid having to close one or more offices, the remaining option is to consider the use of Section 600.042.5, which gives the Director of the Public Defender System the authority to “d$3 elegate the legal representation of any person to any member of the state bar of Missouri”.
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With a flourish of some incredible showmanship, Missouri State Public Defender Director Michael Barrett wrote to Nixon on Tuesday, informing the former attorney general he was exercising his powers under state law to assign cases to any member of the Missouri Bar. The Missouri public defender system’s caseload has increased to about 82,000 cases this year, a 12 percent increase over the previous year, Barrett said.
Barrett is appointed not by the governor, but by a board of seven members of the Missouri Public Defender Commission, who are appointed by the governor. In his letter, he blasts Nixon for cutting money for a system that already ranks second-to-last in state funding for public defenders. In theory, Barrett said, the law was created so that peoples’ constitutional right to a defense could be fulfilled even during hard times. Citing a Justice Department report, he said the lack of public defenders has deprived the rights of “poor black children” without financial access to a legal defense. “It’s not fair to go after private attorneys who are trying to pay the rent when they had nothing to do with contributing to this”, Barrett told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
We’ve reached out to Governor Nixon’s office for comment, and will update if we get a response. In the past year, the office’s 376 attorneys handled upwards of 82,000 cases – an increase of nearly 12 percent over 2014, Barrett said. “That’s what our attorneys have an ethical obligation to do for each and every client, but because there’s too many clients and not enough lawyers, there’s just not enough time in the day to represent each client ethically”. On average, Missouri public defenders spend two.
“Therefore”, Barrett concluded, “I hereby appoint you, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Bar No. 29603, to enter your appearance as counsel of record in the attached case”.
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“I need to track the guy down and let him know what’s coming, ” Barrett said.
