ST. LOUIS • New ºüÀêÊÓƵ Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner is spending her first days on the job talking to prosecutors and unloading boxes while her predecessor, Jennifer Joyce, leaves town in a packed 40-foot RV in search of 70-degree days and quiet campgrounds.
Gardner, elected as in November, went about her first business day in office Tuesday with little fanfare. The new sign outside her office door and the framed ºüÀêÊÓƵ University law diploma on the wall behind her desk are about the only outward signs that she had moved in.
“I’m humbled that the citizens of the city of ºüÀêÊÓƵ chose me to represent them,†Gardner said in an interview Tuesday. “It shows the city has come together and wants a change in how we address the violent crime.â€
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She succeeds Joyce, the city’s longest-serving elected prosecutor whose fourth straight term ended New Year’s Eve.
“I really love ºüÀêÊÓƵ,†Joyce said in a wide-ranging interview last week. “I’ve lived here all my life but I’m ready to have a little bit of a change of scenery. I would like to not think about crime 24 hours a day.â€
Among Gardner’s first moves is hiring Christopher Hinckley, a former ºüÀêÊÓƵ prosecutor turned casino lawyer, as chief warrant officer, a position held for years by Ed Postawko. Gardner said she also hired former public defenders Annette Llewellyn and Robert Steele as top assistants. She says she hasn’t fired anyone but is reorganizing what she called a “top-heavy†office under Joyce by reassigning positions and capping her inner circle to three people.
“The mission is going to be the same — to pursue justice,†Gardner said.
Gardner, 41, worked as a prosecutor in Joyce’s office from 2005-10 and was finishing her second term as the 77th District representative in the Missouri House when she in August over three opponents.
Two challengers in the primary still work as prosecutors in the office. She ran unopposed in the November general election.
Gardner said Tuesday she may tweak the office’s policy of and helping staff get up to speed on that took effect Jan. 1. She also is looking at reversing the office’s policy of withholding details on trial recommendations from defendants as part of plea negotiations. Such a move, she said, might expedite cases and thus reduce pretrial jail time. She also wants to expand diversion programs in some cases.
“We can’t have a one-sized-fits-all way of looking at things,†she said, while thanking Joyce “for her dedication to this office and years of service. It’s a hard job that she’s handled with grace.â€
Joyce, a ºüÀêÊÓƵ University Law School graduate, worked in the circuit attorney’s office as a prosecutor from 1994 until she was elected top prosecutor in 2000. She succeeded Dee Joyce Hayes who served for eight years.
Guns on the street
Joyce said she is proud of her leadership but cognizant that her departure comes amid rising violent crime and while restrictions on guns in Missouri have all but evaporated. “I don’t feel like (the city is) safer,†said Joyce, 54. “I feel a higher level of brazenness with the amount of guns on the streets.â€
Joyce doesn’t think ºüÀêÊÓƵ is doomed to its high crime fate. But she worries that Missouri’s gun laws will make fighting crime harder on police and prosecutors.
Joyce says she regrets her confrontational style with judges in her early years when it came to arguing for tougher prison sentences for violent criminals. “I know I was pretty obnoxious in their eyes.â€
ºüÀêÊÓƵ Circuit Judge Ed Sweeney, a former ºüÀêÊÓƵ prosecutor whom Joyce called a mentor, said one of her mistakes early on was her blanket approach to demanding stiff sentencing instead of evaluating defendants case by case.
“I have no doubt she was 100 percent dedicated to advocating what she thought was the most effective sentences and policies that would serve the citizens by making the streets safer,†Sweeney said.
Sweeney also said Joyce’s push for — also — lacked direction and solid statistical research . The judges balked at the plan in 2013 and ultimately adopted .
Joyce’s darkest days as prosecutor came in 2015 when one of her younger prosecutors, Bliss Worrell, . Joyce said she is proud of how her employees outed the prosecutor and helped federal authorities prosecute Worrell. “That was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me as circuit attorney,†she said. “I was appalled.â€
Ferguson’s lessons
Joyce insists she has led her office with integrity and hasn’t shied from controversy, whether investigating the priest sex abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in the early 2000s or going after bad cops. She applauds one major policy change born of the 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson: that instead of police investigating them internally.
“There is a sea change now in what is expected from us by the public,†Joyce said. “Where (Ferguson) changed me is on things like video … The public does not trust prosecutors or police and they think we’re together on this, and so they believe that if we don’t put the video out there, we must be hiding something and it couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“We are actually trying to hold that police officer accountable. You either have to release that information or you have to do a damn good job explaining to the public why you’re not releasing it.â€
Video is central to the murder case against , whom Joyce charged last year in the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith. ; for waiting years to take action.
Joyce says she hopes Gardner is “very careful†about how she handles police shootings because critics are quick to assign motives and second-guess decisions in such high-profile cases. Gardner has said she would consider using special prosecutors in such cases.
“I’m not worried because I know Kim Gardner,†Joyce said. “I think that it’s going to be a bumpy road for the first year or so, as it was under my administration, but I think, ultimately, Kim has what she needs to be successful. She’s got a good heart and she cares about the city.â€