Gov. Nixon responds to public defenders lawsuit over withholding

Governor Nixon is trying to dismiss a lawsuit against him by the state’s public defender’s office.

ABC 17 News first reported on the lawsuit earlier this month over $3.5 million of withheld funds from the office for the 2017 fiscal year.

Nixon’s attorney filed a motion to disqualify members of the public defender’s office from representing their own office in the case and motioned to dismiss the petition.

That money would have gone to relieve public defenders of “conflict cases”, or cases assigned to them by other areas that cannot represent two or more people in the same case.

In the lawsuit, the public defender’s office said withholding the funds violates the state’s constitution because the governor is not allowed to reduce funds from the judicial branch, only the executive.

Gov. Nixon’s filing states the petition should be dismissed on three grounds.

First, it states the public defender’s office should not be able to bring forth a case without counsel, or legal representation, since it claims they should be disqualified from being their own counsel.

Second, it states if they were represented by someone else, they do not have the authority to ring for a civil suit as defined by law.

And third, it states any claim in the petition is, “not ripe,” or it was filed prematurely.

Assistant Cole County Public Defender Walter Stokely told ABC 17 News he currently has a case load of about 130 cases. Stokely said the $3.5 million would lift a tremendous burden off himself and other public defenders.

“We are absolutely overwhelmed by our case load right now,” Stokely said. “It is imperative that we secure not only this money, but that we continue to grow our funding level in the future because we are not providing constitutionally adequate representation right now.”

ABC 17 News reached out to the the director of the public defender’s office for comment on Nixon’s filing, but has not heard back at this time.