(the legal beagles we have on this board ought to get a kick out of this one.)
Fed up with the lack of funding provided by Missouri Gov. Jeremiah "Jay" Nixon's withholding of funds and other budget cuts, the Director of the Missouri State Public Defender System came up with a unique and totally legal way to kick the matter directly to the person responsible.
Citing a state law — Section 600.042 §5(1) — which permits the Director of the Public Defender System to "(d)elegate the legal representation of any person to any member of the state bar of Missouri", Director Michael Barrett has tasked the Governor (who is a member of the state bar) with the obligation to "enter his appearance as counsel of record" in a case scheduled to be heard in Cole County Circuit Court.
At least he was courteous enough to work with the governor on this; the state capitol of Jefferson City is in Cole County, so at least Mr. Nixon should not need to incur extensive amounts of travel. -"BB"-
"I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead." "Some of it's magic, and some of it's tragic, but I've had a good life all the way."
OMGEEEE. Tomorrow morning I'm going to suggest my boss (a Common Pleas judge) get on the horn with our Chief Public Defender to see if this will work in Lancaster County !
Sorry, but this smacks of grandstanding by the head of the public defender's office. I know nothing about the governor's legal background, but he may not have any criminal law experience. Just being an attorney does not mean you're qualified to handle criminal cases. I was a practicing attorney for 13 years but I worked at a corporate firm. Not only was I not a trial lawyer, I had no criminal law experience. If I had been assigned to work on a criminal case I would have been lost and my client would have had grounds for an appeal based on having ineffective counsel. The public defender may be pitching a tent in his shorts thinking he's being so clever doing something like this, but he could wind up costing the taxpayer's money. If the governor is assigned a case and it goes to trial, how much time do you think his staff members are going to spend doing the actual grunt work on the case instead of doing the jobs they're getting paid to do?
