ST. LOUIS, Missouri — Two days after 22nd Circuit Judge Michael Noble described Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner's office as "a rudderless ship of chaos," the St. Louis prosecutor deployed a different ship analogy to defend the dysfunction in her office.
"When you talk about a rudderless ship," Gardner reacted, "What are you talking about? The criminal justice system is doing what it's always designed to do. And we're trying to change a Titanic of a ship to be fair and just."
"Well, it's going down. I agree," Democratic defense attorney and 2024 primary candidate David Mueller responded. "She's definitely hit the iceberg of her own self-imposed problems: the self-imposed problems of driving people away from her office."
After a steady stream of resignations, the ranks of assistant prosecutors in Gardner's office are almost entirely depleted. At last report, she has just two prosecutors on staff who can handle violent felony trials, and they're each saddled with staggering burdens of hundreds of case files.
The workload has grown so large, prosecutors have missed serious criminal court hearings, judges have issued public rebukes, and distressed staff have exited Gardner's office with sordid tales of a toxic work environment.
Gardner appeared at a town hall forum on Saturday morning with about 50 to 60 of her supporters at the Central Baptist Church. During her speech, she shrugged off the ongoing court battle to remove her from office as "a witch hunt" designed to discourage young reformers from going to law school or pursuing a career in the criminal justice arena.
"I'm not leaving. I'm not resigning. I'm not doing nothing," she said to rousing cheers. "You gonna have to remove me."
Mueller, who recently filed campaign documents with the Missouri Ethics Commission to launch his first-ever campaign for public office, said city voters can see a difference between the Republican-led push to expel Gardner from office and the sober critique from judges who preside over Gardner's cases.
"She's got a new problem," Mueller said, rejecting Attorney General Andrew Bailey's proceeding to expel Gardner as a disingenuous affront to democracy. "This is different. This is people calling balls and strikes, not politics."
Former St. Louis alderman Mike Gras, a trial lawyer who lost his primary re-election race earlier this spring, told 5 On Your Side he intends to file papers to jump into the Democratic primary race against Gardner and Mueller this week.
"It's extremely problematic that our Circuit Attorney's Office is so antagonistic to the judges," Gras said. "If there is systemic racism in the court system, Kim Gardner is the absolutely worst person to address it. She hasn't been able to address it yet. It's getting worse under her."
State Senator Steve Roberts (D-St. Louis) is another local attorney who has considered entering the race, according to sources familiar with his thinking.
"I'm solely focused on representing the city of St. Louis in Jefferson City at this critical time," Roberts said in a text message, sidestepping any conversation about his ambitions for higher office.
Gras and Mueller both describe Gardner as an obstacle to justice, while she frames herself as the deliverer of it.
"When Ms. Gardner talks about how no one inside the office wants to work for her; when she talks about the judges; when she talks about Jeff City, I will keep saying these victims names and I will keep centering these families," Mueller said. "That matters just as much. And she has yet to take accountability for those families."
"She's actually not giving bond to people of color," Gras said. "She is not advancing cases to trial. I mean, since her office is in such dysfunction, people are stuck in the criminal justice system. People are stuck in jail. These are people that have not been convicted of a crime and they're stuck in jail awaiting trial. These are Black folks. So, her being the champion of Black folks in this city and for the criminal justice system, I just cannot agree with because she's doing nothing to help Black folks deal with the criminal justice system in the city."
Three months ago, very few St. Louis Democrats were willing to say a cross word about Gardner in public. But that all changed in an instant when Mayor Tishaura Jones called Gardner's office into question for its role in a "preventable tragedy," and later prodded her to "do some soul searching" to determine if she wanted to stay in the job.
Gardner also felt personally slighted that the chorus of criticism reached its crescendo in the immediate aftermath of her crowning career achievement.
Missouri courts cleared Lamar Johnson's name of a wrongful conviction on February 14, vacating Johnson's 1995 murder conviction, and handing Gardner a hard fought victory against the Missouri Attorney General's office.
Four days later, Daniel Riley, a suspect who was out on bond and had repeatedly violated the conditions of his house arrest, struck 17-year-old Tennessee volleyball player Janae Edmondson with his car. Edmondson lost her legs in the crash, and the public outrage swelled into calls for Gardner's resignation.
Instead of preparing for a media tour to take a victory lap in the Johnson case, Gardner found herself digging in to fight for her political life.
"What you're seeing is a witch hunt right now," Gardner said. "What they want you to believe is it's about a case. It's not about a case."
Gardner walked out of the Central Baptist Church Saturday morning after delivering a defiant 13-minute speech to about 60 loyal supporters who awarded her with a t-shirt and heralded her as "the Mother of Justice."
Gardner, who ran her campaign on a platform of police accountability, claimed some unnamed person in the police union offered her a corrupt arrangement where they wouldn't oppose her politically if she agreed to leave them alone.
"Before I was elected, I had a meeting with the police union, and they told me, 'We will let you be in this office if you make sure you never hold any police officer accountable. We'll let you have that next election and make sure no one runs against you if you make sure no one is held accountable who is considered law enforcement,'" she said.
Members of the audience gasped in disbelief as she went on to portray herself as the lone law enforcement officer left standing in a fight against officer-involved shootings, unsolved murders, and corrupt police who plant evidence to secure wrongful convictions against innocent Black suspects.
"I've been criminalized every day because of my black skin, because I'm Black," she said. "I've never had a fair shake."
"All I had to do in that meeting before I took office was say, 'Yes, boss, I'll do my job like a good...
"A good slave," a member of the crowd interjected.
"A good Circuit Attorney," Gardner resumed. "Because you think the office wasn't controlled by the police department? They came in there and told you what to do, how to do it, who to charge, what to charge, and what to make the case. And I said, 'We're not doing that today.' And I lost a lot of attorneys because they are afraid of standing up for what's right."
Gardner's clash with police has polarized the office to the point where her progressive political opponents suggest that relationship is in need of a reset.
"There should be friction between the circuit attorney's office and the police department," Mueller responded, "but it has to be a functional relationship. If you don't have a functional relationship with the police department, you've broken apart those two entities and they can't be reconciled."
Gardner, who has fewer attorneys on staff than at any time during her six years on the job, blamed the exodus on unnamed conspirators who she claims are working to undermine her.
"You can't run a office that you have people inside and out purposely tearing this office down," Gardner said.
She told her supporters that if someone in her position of power could be thrown from office, they could become victims of the same system.
“It's me here now today. It's going to be you next and your family next," she said. “Regardless of the outcome of me, remember this: Stand up. Fight."
Farrakhan Shegog, one of Gardner's supporters, addressed the crowd before she spoke. He acknowledged things aren't running very smoothly, and applauded her last remaining staff for "riding with you until the wheels fall off."
"I don't care if I have nobody in my office because it's about doing the right things," Gardner said.
"If you have no one left to lead, you're not a leader," Mueller responded. "If she's going to hollow out the office, and put her ego above her employees, above her subordinates, and above the city, that's why I'm running."