ST. LOUIS — Four prescription pill bottles tell a story.
They were sitting on a table, one next to another, in the courtroom of Circuit Judge Scott A. Millikan on Monday morning. They belonged to Alex Polta, an assistant circuit attorney who sat at the table to answer for not showing up to a murder trial last week.
That failure caused the judge to issue an for Polta’s boss, Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, to explain what happened. She risked being held in criminal contempt of court.
It was a big step for a judge to take, but one that was years in the making. Gardner’s office has missed hearings and deadlines, dropped and refiled cases, and faced a litany of criticism about not performing basic public safety functions.
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Gardner wasn’t in court Monday, though she sent attorneys in her place. Gardner doesn’t think she did anything wrong. She blames Polta, who was on leave to deal with medical issues, as represented by the pill bottles.
On Friday, Gardner filed a legal brief explaining to the judge that she can’t be held in contempt because the mistake wasn’t hers. Yes, Polta was on leave, Gardner wrote, but he didn’t properly communicate about the case in question. She shared a series of texts between Polta and another staff member.
“Ms. Gardner and the (circuit attorney’s office) do not understand, and do not believe they are in the position to answer this Court, regarding Mr. Polta’s actions or intentions with regard to the April 17 trial setting,†Gardner’s private attorney, Michael Downey, wrote.
The brief made arguments similar to the ones Gardner is making in the action by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is trying . In both cases, Gardner blames her staff for failures and says she cannot be held responsible for their mistakes because the law requires her actions to be intentional.
In an office that is running out of prosecutors — two more left last week — such arguments might be good legal strategy for helping Gardner avoid responsibility. But they once again highlight her failure of leadership, as she drives the bus over her remaining staff members in one case, then backs it up over their damaged bodies in another.
“Ms. Gardner is not throwing anybody under the bus,†one of her attorneys said in a hearing last week on Bailey’s action. The tire marks on Polta’s back tell a different story.
When asked by Millikan whose fault it was that nobody from the office showed up at the murder trial, Polta paused, stiffened his back and offered the sort of answer Gardner fails to give:
“I apologize,†he said. “There really is no excuse for somebody not showing up to trial. I am the attorney of record.â€
Millikan dropped the contempt charge but issued Gardner a warning.
“What I’m trying to do is bring some semblance of order to this circuit,†he said. “I think we’re going to see more of these (contempt) orders.â€
That’s because there are too few employees left in Gardner’s office to get the job done. They face many murder trials on the spring and summer calendars, with public defenders rightly pushing for speedy trials and bond reductions as their clients waste away in jail. Gardner’s office struggles to get cases to trial, and then too often drops them on the eve of trial, only to refile them the next day.
That’s what Millikan fears will happen to the case against Jonathan Jones, who is scheduled for trial on June 5. The judge denied public defender Cecilia Appleberry’s motions for a dismissal and a bond reduction, despite agreeing that the delays put Jones’ right to due process at risk.
“We were prepared,†Appleberry told the judge. “We were here. We were ready.â€
Gardner’s office was not, and that means delayed justice for the family of 29-year-old Brandon Scot, who was shot and killed near the Gateway Arch in 2021. It means Jones stays in jail, unable to properly face the charges against him. And it means the new June court date sits as a placeholder, with little guarantee that the case won’t be dropped and refiled at that point.
This sort of thing is going to happen “more and more,†until order is brought to the circuit attorney’s office, Millikan said.
The only prescription is for Gardner to lead or get out of the way.
Unwilling to do either, Gardner has driven the judicial bus in ºüÀêÊÓƵ into the ditch. Until she takes her hands off the wheel, it will stay there.