Kim Gardner will relinquish her authority and power as St. Louis Circuit Attorney on June 1.
Her resignation had been in process, according to media reports, but the effort was scuttled by Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s Quo Warranto lawsuit against Gardner.
“She’s resigning because it will stop Republican efforts to put a special prosecutor in and she has said that the biggest tool she has right now to fight against people trying to take over St. Louis is her stepping back,” said St. Louis Attorney and Alderman Mike Gras.
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, if Bailey’s Quo Warranto legal action against Kim Gardner in the St. Louis City Circuit Court is granted, she would have been removed immediately from office. But, HB 301, if approved by lawmakers, would deny the right of St. Louis voters to elect the Circuit Attorney of their choice.
“Everybody I think deserves to have elected representation in their government,” Gras told the St. Louis Record. “The idea that the City of St. Louis, no matter who we elect as a prosecutor, the state would be able to put someone in there and control the prosecution is offensive to representative democracy.”
Gardner was also facing pressure from St. Louis Judge Michael Noble who was attempting to hold her in criminal contempt of court because assistant prosecutor Chris Desilets failed to report to an April 10 court hearing involving the alleged shooting of an 11-year-old girl.
"From what I know about judges, they don't want to work if they don't have to so I think that with her stepping down, the judges on all cases related to her will probably continue past June and then they'd be moot," Gras said in an interview.
Gras expressed interest in replacing Gardner however the announcement of his candidacy was delayed by the death of James Heitman, 32, an assistant prosecutor, on May 4. Gardner announced her resignation shortly thereafter.
As previously reported, Heitman died in a car crash.
"He rear-ended some cars that had stopped," Gras added. "You just feel so terrible for that office because of the stress they were going through already and to have something like that happen."
In late March, Gardner announced her candidacy for re-election at the West Side Missionary Baptist Church on Page Boulevard however she has not said whether she will continue her campaign.
"Kim Gardner still needs to be held accountable for the fact that she's let out numerous criminals on the street," said Byron Keelin, president of the Freedom Principle MO, a conservative, Missouri-first 501(c)4 organization. "In our mind, she needs to lose her law license so that she can never practice law again."