To protest budget cuts, Missouri's top public defender is making the governor personally take a case

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) is in a seven-year spat with his state's public defenders, a fight that began — per the defenders' account — when Nixon vetoed a funding bill that was supposed to offer relief to the wildly overworked lawyers. Since then, Nixon has continued to dramatically cut budget packages for indigent defense, leaving public defense attorneys in Missouri so overloaded with cases that they can spend only 20 percent of the recommended hours on the average case.

This week, the director of the Public Defender's office, Michael Barrett, decided to supplement his exhausted team with some outside help. And so, pursuant to state law, he ordered Gov. Nixon, a practicing attorney, to personally represent a defendant in court. He notified Nixon in a letter released Tuesday and circulated on social media Wednesday.

"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 6th and 14th Amendments to private attorneys who have in no way contributed to the current crisis," Barrett's letter said. "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."

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Nixon has yet to publicly respond, and Barrett admits he isn't sure what will happen next. "Who knows?" he said. "I think he's got to go to court."