As I noted in last week’s blog post, Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed legislation that would allow the state’s Public Defender Commission to establish limits on their caseload.
But the story doesn’t necessarily end there. Lawmakers could choose to override Nixon during next month’s veto session. Sen. Jack Goodman – a Mount Vernon Republican who sponsored the legislation – said last week he was unsure about whether he would seek an override.
Even if he does, overturning Nixon’s veto could be challenging. While his bill passed without significant opposition, there could be lawmakers who switch their votes. That’s what occurred last year during an attempted override of legislation allowing the University of Missouri system’s student curator to vote.
Many lawmakers who voted affirmatively earlier this year might be swayed to switch by prosecutors and judges who have vigorously opposed Goodman’s bill.
While state Rep. Mary Still, D-Columbia, expressed reservations about Goodman’s bill when it was being debated, she still voted in favor of the legislation. Asked today whether the objections of local officials would prompt her to switch her vote, Still said “I would have to look at that very closely.”
“I did have misgivings about that bill,” Still said. “And my concern was that criminals could be left out on the street or innocent people could still be in jail if they just shut down the system. So, I would like to see… the bill restructured to address those issues. And I appreciated the governor’s commitment for more money. I mean, that’s the bottom line. That’s what this whole bill is dancing around the fact.”
Asked a similar question about whether he’d switch his vote, Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, said there needs to be an aggressive effort to deal with a “backlog” of cases within the public defender system.
“There are several moving parts to a criminal prosecution,” said Schaefer, who previously worked in a prosecutorial role for the attorney general’s office. “You got to have a good prosecutor, you’ve got to have a good judge and you got to have a good defender – whether that’s the public defender or an attorney in private practice. Because if you have a problem in any one of those three phases, then you risk a reversal of a conviction on various grounds.”
“Whether it’s funding or whether it’s a mechanism to simply streamline the cases they handle, I’d have to look at it when it comes up,” he added. “But we’ve got to do something.”
Click here to watch a video of Nixon’s talking about the public defender bill.
Tags: jack goodman, jay nixon, kurt schaefer, mary still, public defender systemCategories: Business.
