St. Louis City’s top prosecutor is arguing that she did not make any of the decisions complained of in the lawsuit Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed against her, but a former Indiana AG says the defense strategy is a cowardly way of answering.
Bailey filed a Quo Warranto action against Kim Gardner in the St. Louis City Circuit Court, which, if granted by the court, would remove her immediately from office.
“That's a horrible position to put your staff in,” said Curtis Hill, who was Indiana’s AG from 2017 to 2021. “She's responsible. It's her office. The people work for her. If she acknowledges that the people underneath her did misdeeds or missteps, and she doesn't take action to correct it, then that’s on her.”
Gardner has been under fire for not imprisoning Daniel Riley, a motorist involved in a car crash that injured 17-year-old Janae Edmondson on Feb. 18. As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, Riley had violated the conditions of his bond on more than one occasion, and Edmondson has had both legs amputated. Gardner blamed the court for allegedly rejecting an Aug. 10, 2022, request by her office that Riley be taken into custody for a different offense.
Gardner's attorney, Mike Downey, answered Bailey’s complaint on March 14 and filed a motion to dismiss along with a motion to stay discovery.
“She did not make any of the decisions complained of in the Petition,” Downey wrote. “Ms. Gardner does not have personal knowledge of all circumstances and reasons for each of the decisions complained of in the Petition.”
Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District Judge John P. Torbitzky has been appointed by the Missouri Supreme Court to oversee the proceedings. Torbitzky granted Bailey’s preliminary motion to remove Gardner from office, but Gardner will stay in office until the preliminary order is made permanent or if the court issues an order, according to media reports.
Two out of six prosecutors have been removed by Quo Warranto action, according to Downey, for failing to investigate cases they worked on.
Bailey “fails to come anywhere close to this high bar," Downey wrote. "Mr. Bailey alleges negligence: mere violations of duty, mistakes, or thoughtless failures by others."
Hill argued there is a danger to removing Gardner by Quo Warranto instead of by the electoral process.
"She may be a horrible prosecutor," he said. "She may not be meeting deadlines. Cases may be going by the wayside, but the voters elected her into office, and if she's otherwise qualified, that's what they get.
"So, it should be a high standard to remove her because you don't want a situation where somebody gets ticked off or bothered by a particular decision or a particular series of decisions in this political process, and then go after someone willy-nilly."