MISSOURI STATE PUBLIC DEFENDER
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR
August 2, 2016
The Honorable Jay Nixon
Governor of Missouri
P.O. Box 720
Jefferson City, Missouri 65102
Dear Governor Nixon:
Seven years ago, your office vetoed Senate Committee Substitute for Senate Bill No. 37, which would have
provided caseload relief to an overburdened public defender system. In denying that relief, you
acknowledged that MSPD was operating "under significant stresses" and committed to working with the
General Assembly to fix the problem, but never did.
Instead, you have repeatedly cut funding for an indigent defense system that continues to rank 49111 in the
U.S., with a budget that the consumer price index indicates has less value now than it did in 2009. After
cutting $3.47 million from public defense in 2015, you now cite fiscal discipline as reason to again restrict
MSPD's budget, this time by 8.5%. However, and despite claims that revenues are considerably less than
expected, you did not restrict a single dollar from your own budget, and the average withhold from 12 of
your executive agencies does not even add up to one half of one percent (.47%).
This action comes even after the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice found that poor black
children are being systematically deprived of their rights in Missouri due in large part to the lack of public
defenders. Choosing in the wake of that report to futiher debilitate the very organization that ensures an
equal system of justice only adds to the escalating sentiment that the poor and disenfranchised do not receive
a fair shake in Missouri's criminal justice system.
As Director of the Public Defender System, I can only hire attorneys when I have the funding to do so.
Because you have restricted that funding, MSPD must hold a significant number of vacant positions open
to have the necessary funds to make it through the fiscal year, a task which is exacerbated by a 12% increase
in cases over the year prior. To avoid having to close one or more offices, the remaining option is to consider
the use of Section 600.042.5, which gives the Director of the Public Defender System the authority to
"[d]elegate the legal representation of any person to any member of the state bar of Missouri."
As of yet, I have not utilized this provision because it is my sincere belief that it is wrong to reassign an
obligation placed on the state by the 6111 and 14111 Amendments to private attorneys who have in no way
contributed to the current crisis. However, given the extraordinary circumstances that compel me to
entertain any and all avenues for relief, it strikes me that I should begin with the one attorney in the state
who not only created this problem, but is in a unique position to address it.