This story just keeps getting stranger. We learned Tuesday that the case seeking to remove St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner from office will go to trial. Yesterday her story took another twist that I don’t think anyone saw coming.
Before she became St. Louis Circuit Attorney, Kim Gardner was a registered nurse. But it seems she hasn’t given up on that other career path yet, despite having a very demanding full-time job which isn’t going very well right now. It has been confirmed that while working as Circuit Attorney, Garner is also enrolled in a graduate nursing program at St. Louis University.
Yesterday, Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued a subpoena to SLU’s nursing school as part of his ongoing effort to remove Gardner from office.
Those subpoenas indicate that Bailey is seeking from the school “[a]ll documents reflecting Kimberly Gardner’s student directory information, course of study, class schedule, and hours worked in clinicals, internships, and practicums (hereinafter collectively referred to as “classes/clinicals”) from January 1, 2021, to the present, in any nursing or medical program at St. Louis University.”
The RFT asked a former CAO staff member if they knew Gardner was enrolled in graduate courses in addition to being circuit attorney. This former staffer, who asked to not be named, said, “Sounds about right. That’d explain why she was a mix between generally inaccessible and rarely there.”
The RFT got an anonymous tip claiming that Gardner has been on campus 30 hours a week but after checking out the program in question that wouldn’t be necessary. Still, it sounds like this is not just a few continuing education credits. According to the school, this is a doctoral nursing degree which requires four to five years of classes plus “1,050 or 1,125 clinical hours, depending on the specialty.” If you do the math 1,050 hours is six months of full time work (40 hours a week). Even spread out over five years that’s a huge time commitment (again, not including classes).
Maybe it would go unnoticed if Gardner was doing amazing work at her main gig, but that’s definitely not the case. In fact, her office is in crisis at this point. In the last two months a third of her staff has quit.
Nearly one-third of the attorneys in St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner’s office have left in the past two months, including two more in recent days, leaving a decimated staff to handle thousands of criminal and child support cases in the city…
In her first two years in office, Gardner had a more than 100% turnover rate for attorneys, shedding hundreds of years of cumulative experience prosecuting cases in St. Louis. Critics said it meant more serious cases were getting reassigned to prosecutors who didn’t have the experience or time necessary to prepare for trial. Dismissal rates increased.
By February of this year, a Post-Dispatch analysis found Gardner had roughly half as many prosecutors as when she took office. Experts and former prosecutors said the caseloads would be nearly impossible to handle.
Remember that after the car crash that kicked off the Attorney General’s demand for Gardner to resign her office initially claimed the suspect in that case, 21-year-old Daniel Riley, hadn’t been prosecuted in a prior robbery case because the victim had died. Only that wasn’t true. The victim was still alive. There was also the question about why no one in Gardner’s office had tried to revoke Riley’s bond after more than 50 violations of the conditions of his release. The answer, pretty clearly, is that Gardner’s office is a disaster that is understaffed and full of inexperienced people.
The situation has gotten so bad that on two recent occasions Gardner’s office has been threatened with being held in contempt for failing to appear for long-scheduled trials. This clip is from last week:
When things are going that poorly, you don’t have time to earn a graduate degree on the side. AG Andrew Bailey held another press conference Wednesday to discuss the new developments. I’m going to skip over some of that and cue this up to his discussion of her nursing studies. Bailey really puts Gardner on blast here saying, “The criminal justice system in the city of St. Louis has ceased to function and people are suffering from her unlawful refusal to do her job.” He added, “If the Circuit Attorney wants to be a nurse, she needs to cease pretending to be a prosecuting attorney.”
Update: Thanks to Ed for pointing this out.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner announced Thursday that, after weeks of blistering pressure from Missouri lawmakers, she would indeed resign.
In a letter addressed to Gov. Mike Parson, Gardner made no mention of the turmoil in her office nor the extensive staff departures in recent weeks. Instead, she said she was stepping down, effective June 1, to prevent the state Legislature from passing a bill that would strip her of most of her power and “permanently remove the right of every St. Louis voter to elect their Circuit Attorney.”…
News of her departure sent shockwaves through the halls of the two downtown courthouses where victims, defense attorneys, judges and even Gardner’s own staffers had complained for months about critical office departures and widespread dysfunction. It also reverberated through the Capitol in Jefferson City where lawmakers had been debating a bill to strip her of power.
I sort of thought she’d give in eventually but didn’t expect it to be this soon. I think it was the either the stories about her side gig in nursing school or the judge’s decision that she had 30 days to turn over documents that was the final straw. Here’s the full statement for those who are interested.
— Circuit Attorney (@stlcao) May 4, 2023
AG Andrew Bailey wants her to leave sooner and says he’ll continue to pursue removal until she’s gone.
There is absolutely no reason for the Circuit Attorney to remain in office until June 1. We remain undeterred with our legal quest to forcibly remove her from office. Every day she remains puts the city of St. Louis in more danger. How many victims will there be between now and…
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) May 4, 2023
He also tweeted out this story from Fox News.
"An embattled George Soros-bankrolled prosecutor in St. Louis resigned Thursday amid a legal effort by Missouri's attorney general to fire her for allegedly neglecting her duties."
->https://t.co/QC4KkyySnn— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) May 4, 2023
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