ST. LOUIS — One week after Kim Gardner resigned as St. Louis circuit attorney, the Missouri governor and Missouri attorney general’s offices are getting a first-hand look at all the work ahead for her newly-named replacement.
In all, the transition team, which includes the governor’s general counsel Evan Rodriguez acting as circuit attorney and several assistant attorneys general working with him, has discovered more than 4,800 warrant applications police have sent to an email system Gardner created that have not been reviewed.
Kelli Jones, spokeswoman for Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, says that list “almost certainly includes duplicates.”
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department says there are 3,860 cases that officers have sent to the circuit attorney's office going back at least two years that prosecutors have not made a decision on. The cases are almost exclusively misdemeanors and non-violent felonies.
The transition team has prioritized covering current trials and dockets “so cases don’t get dismissed or people get released,” Jones said.
Then, staff is digging through cases with the highest severity, deadlines, motions, discovery or other urgent matters, she said.
Jones said the governor's appointee, Gabe Gore, is "tentatively" scheduled to be sworn in on Memorial Day, and he is resigning from the Dowd Bennett law firm Friday.
Victim Services is also contacting victims, and Jones said any victim wondering about the status of their case is encouraged to call the same number, 314-622-4373, for information.
At least one crime victim tells 5 On Your Side's Justina Coronel the Circuit Attorney’s Office contacted her for the first time regarding her son’s case. The murder trial for the man suspected of killing Neekia Danfort’s son was scheduled to begin Monday with a prosecutor who no longer works there. Monday morning, the judge in her son's case continued the murder trial instead of dismissing it. There was an assistant circuit attorney present.
And the judge granted that state's motion to continue the trial in two weeks for a status conference to see what's next.
Jones said the transition team has not made any staffing changes since taking over following Gardner’s abrupt resignation one week ago, but First Assistant Circuit Attorney Serena Wilson-Griffin resigned alongside Gardner on Tuesday. Chief Warrant Officer Chris Hinckley’s last day is Friday, according to Jones.
Hinckley’s salary was $130,600 and Wilson-Griffin’s was $135,752.
Hinckley gained attention during the McCloskey investigation after he asked a crime lab worker to make the gun Patricia McCloskey pointed at protesters operational. The McCloskeys said the gun was used only as a prop during a court case they litigated, and it had to be rendered incapable of firing to be used in the courtroom.
Hinckley ordered the crime lab to disassemble and reassemble Patricia McCloskey’s gun and signed a court document stating that it was “capable of lethal use” at the time she pointed it at protesters – a requirement to charge them with a crime. In a motion, Gardner wrote that the law allows prosecutors to say both of the McCloskeys' guns were readily capable of lethal use, “even without proof that they were functional or loaded at the time of the incident.”
Hinckley was also among those the St. Louis Police Officers Association sent a subpoena to following the creation of an “exclusion list,” that banned 48 officers from bringing cases to Gardner’s office in 2018. That list continued to grow throughout Gardner’s administration, and she never revealed what officers were on it, why they were on it and/or how they could be removed.
Attorney General Andrew Bailey told 5 On Your Side following Gardner’s resignation, “The AG’s office doesn’t have an exclusion list.”