If a local criminal defense attorney is elected to replace St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, he promises to take on a caseload himself.
David Mueller, who has been in private practice for a number of years, announced his candidacy last week.
“One of the things I've been critical of Ms. Gardner about is that she's not in the courtroom,” he said. “I believe in leading from the front and I don't think it's wise, and I don't think it's something that encourages lawyers to stay because they believe in a mission and that the prosecuting attorney's office can be a place for good.”
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, Gardner will campaign for re-election in 2024 despite Attorney General Andrew Bailey filing a quo warranto against her in St. Louis City Circuit Court. If granted, AG Bailey's lawsuit would remove her immediately from office.
In other breaking news, a St. Louis judge threatened to hold Gardner in contempt of court over her office's failure to show up Monday morning for the start of a first degree murder trial, FOX 2 reported. Gardner is ordered to appear before Judge Scott Millikan on April 24 to show cause.
“What's going on right now in that office is people have caseloads exceeding 200 violent felonies,” Mueller told the St. Louis Record. “That's incredible. Ideally, that number would be closer to 50.”
Originally from Normandy, Mueller graduated from St. Louis University High School and attended George Washington University law school in Washington, D.C. before working as a public defender and presently as a criminal defense attorney.
“I'll be running to the left of Ms. Gardner,” he said. “St. Louis has been at an inflection point. We've lost 7,000 residents in one year in the most recent census.”
Mueller thinks Gardner has not been a progressive prosecutor because she continues to pursue capital punishment as well as cash bail and cash bond.
“Cash bail and cash bond separate people from their family before they're found guilty,” he said. “It keeps people incarcerated who don't need to be incarcerated. Eliminating cash bail and cash bond is the elimination of two separate systems, which is one for the wealthy who can pay for their freedom, and one for the impoverished who can't.”
This is Mueller’s first foray into politics but he’s prepared.
“I have been asked to run for months and things started to pick up,” Mueller said in an interview. “More people approached me and I had to sit down with my family and decide if it was something I was willing to put my family through.”
As the married father of two children, Mueller is concerned about any mud-slinging that may impact his family.
“I'd like to not make it about personal attacks,” he said. “I'd like it just to be about Kim Gardner's record and office and what I plan to do to fix it. I'm extremely familiar with and fluent in the language of criminal law here in the state of Missouri."