If the legislature and Gov. Mike Parson were to approve a proposal combining the prosecuting offices of St. Louis County with the city of St. Louis, there would be immediate constitutional challenges, according to a former state prosecutor.
“All the problems that large urban areas deal with like violent crime, homicide, and other issues are focused on in an office like the St. Louis city prosecutor’s office and a merger would run the risk of diluting the attention that needs to be paid to the problems that live in St. Louis city, assuming that it would be constitutional to do so,” said Patrick A. McInerney, partner with the Spencer Fane law firm in Kansas City. “I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
McInerney was responding to a measure that State Rep. Nick Schroer (R- St. Charles County) said he filed to relieve excessive turnover in the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office, according to media reports.
“This is just a thinly veiled effort to eliminate the political and judicial control of the St. Louis city prosecutor's office and to dilute the black impact on the judicial system in St. Louis,” McInerney told the St. Louis Record. "It's pretty transparent."
The current St. Louis Circuit Attorney is Kimberly Gardner, the first African American to be elected to the position, and the prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County is Wesley Bell, the first African American to hold the elected office. Both are Democrats.
“If the merger was to eliminate Kim Gardner's position and put all that in Wesley Bell's lap, it would be an enormous mandate for Wesley Bell,” McInerney said. “That job would get about three times bigger than it is right now.”
The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported that in addition to eliminating Gardner’s elected position, combining the two offices would give control of the St. Louis police to the state.
“The people who favor local control would tell you that the primary advantage is direct accountability with the City Council or with the Board of Alderman in St. Louis for criminal justice policy and that they don't want the state interfering in criminal justice policy and law enforcement,” McInerney said. “On the other side of it, people would tell you they don't want political involvement at the city council level in the police department, and policing ought to be nonpolitical and nonpartisan.”
Last summer, McInerney said he represented the Board of Police Commissioners when Kansas City officials attempted to remove $43 million from the police board budget.
“Kansas City has a state-controlled police board where four members are appointed by the governor and the fifth member is the mayor,” he added. “I sued the mayor and the city council on behalf of the police board. We won that case at the end of last year and, and got the money returned. So, police control has been a really contentious question in Kansas City as well.”