Missouri Public Defender Orders The Governor To Legally Represent A Criminal Defendant
Facing a significant shortage of attorneys, the head of the Missouri State Public Defender’s office, Michael Barrett, took drastic action to confront Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon this week. [Update: Nixon’s office takes issue with Barrett’s action.]
WASHINGTON — Facing a significant shortage of attorneys, a slashed budget, and a public criminal defense system that ranks 49th in the nation, the head of the Missouri State Public Defender’s office took a dramatic step this week.
On Tuesday, he used a rarely invoked state statute and sent a letter to Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon that appointed Nixon — as a practicing attorney in the state — to serve as the lawyer for a criminal defendant who cannot afford an attorney.
On Wednesday, the letter began circulating on social media and the director of the Missouri State Public Defender’s office, Michael Barrett, was eager and ready to defend his unusual action.
“The government funds a lot of things. We’re one of the few things that you have to fund,” Barrett told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview on Wednesday night. “You’ve got to pay so that people can get their constitutional rights. Before someone gets incarcerated after being prosecuted by the state, they deserve a lawyer. And that’s the state’s obligation.”
“We’re the instrumentality,” he said of the Public Defender’s office, “but it’s the state’s obligation.”
In the Tuesday letter, Barrett pointed to a series of actions taken by Nixon and the legislature limiting and reducing the funding for the Public Defender’s office in the face of other information showing that it is dramatically underfunded.