NATIONAL NEWS

St. Louis prosecutor to seek reelection despite ouster bid

Mar 29, 2023, 9:33 AM

FILE - St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner speaks on Jan. 13, 2020, in St. Louis. Gardner said T...

FILE - St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner speaks on Jan. 13, 2020, in St. Louis. Gardner said Tuesday night, March 28, that she will run for a third term, despite efforts by Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to remove her from office. Bailey's court motion accuses Gardner, a Democrat, of incompetence, citing among other things a low rate of convictions for homicide cases. Gardner told a crowd at the Tuesday forum that the ouster effort is racially motivated. (AP Photo/Jim Salter, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(AP Photo/Jim Salter, File)

ST. LOUIS (AP) — St. Louis’ elected prosecutor has said she will run for reelection in 2024, even as she tries to fend off an effort by Missouri’s attorney general to force her out of office.

Democratic Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner spoke Tuesday night at an often-raucous public forum and made it clear that not only will she not resign, but that she plans to run again.

Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey last month filed a lawsuit asking a judge to remove Gardner from office, accusing her of incompetence. Bailey cited a low rate of convictions in homicide cases, accused Gardner of failing to keep crime victims and their families updated, and said her office is too slow to take up cases brought by police.

In addition to the lawsuit, a Republican-led bill in the statehouse would give the governor authority to appoint a special prosecutor to take on violent crimes in jurisdictions with a homicide rate over a certain threshold — a measure drafted with St. Louis in mind.

Gardner, the city’s first Black circuit attorney, told the crowd at West Side Missionary Baptist Church that Bailey and other Republican critics have “made it about race. I didn’t make it about race. All these white males attacking a Black circuit attorney. So you tell me who’s talking about race?”

Bailey, in a statement, said Gardner is the one “injecting race and politics into a legal proceeding” and noted that many Democrats in St. Louis have raised concerns about Gardner’s performance.

“This isn’t just me saying this,” Bailey said. “I’m speaking on behalf of the people of the state of Missouri, but her own constituents and elected officials within her jurisdiction have also called for her to resign. So the claim that this is politically or racially motivated is ridiculous.”

Gardner, 47, was elected in 2016 and reelected in 2020. She is among several progressive Democratic prosecutors across the country who have taken steps such as ending prosecution of low-level marijuana crimes and seeking mental health treatment over incarceration for non-violent criminals.

She has often clashed with police, most notably in 2018 when she announced an “exclusion list” of more than two dozen police officers who were barred from serving as primary witnesses in criminal cases due to what Gardner characterized as credibility concerns.

Criticism of Gardner escalated last month after 17-year-old Janae Edmondson, a volleyball standout from Tennessee, was struck by a speeding car following a tournament game in downtown St. Louis. The 21-year-old driver was out on bond on a robbery charge despite nearly 100 bond violations that included letting his GPS monitor die and breaking terms of his house arrest, according to court records.

Some questioned why Riley was allowed to remain free despite so many bond violations.

Gardner gained national attention in 2018 when she charged then-Gov. Eric Greitens with felony invasion of privacy, accusing him of taking a compromising photo of a woman during an extramarital affair. The charge was eventually dropped. But Greitens, a Republican who was also under investigation by Missouri lawmakers, resigned in June 2018.

The case drew scrutiny that led to the written reprimand for failing to produce documents and mistakenly maintaining that all documents had been provided to Greitens’ lawyers.

National News

Associated Press

Dethroned crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried to be sentenced for defrauding FTX investors

NEW YORK (AP) — Former crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, facing the potential of decades in prison, waited to hear his fate Thursday as a sentencing proceeding began in a New York court to assess the penalty for his role in the 2022 collapse of FTX, once one of the world’s most popular platforms for trading […]

10 hours ago

Associated Press

Doctors visiting a Gaza hospital are stunned by the war’s toll on Palestinian children

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst. But the gruesome impact Israel’s war against Hamas is having on Palestinian children still left them stunned. One toddler died from a brain injury caused by an Israeli strike that fractured his skull. His […]

10 hours ago

Associated Press

US military drains fuel from tank facility that leaked fuel into Pearl Harbor’s drinking water

HONOLULU (AP) — The U.S. military said it’s finished draining million of gallons of fuel from an underground fuel tank complex in Hawaii that poisoned 6,000 people when it leaked jet fuel into Pearl Harbor’s drinking water in 2021. Joint Task Force Red Hill began defueling the tanks in October after completing months of repairs […]

11 hours ago

Associated Press

Former correctional officer at women’s prison in California sentenced for sexually abusing inmates

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A former correctional officer at a federal California women’s prison known for numerous misconduct allegations was sentenced to six years in prison for sexually abusing five inmates, federal officials announced Wednesday. Nakie Nunley, who supervised inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, becomes the seventh correctional officer sentenced to prison for […]

12 hours ago

Associated Press

Nobelist Daniel Kahneman, a pioneer of behavioral economics, is dead at 90

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won a Nobel Prize in economics for his insights into how ingrained neurological biases influence decision making, died Wednesday at the age of 90. Kahneman’s partner, Barbara Tversky — the widow of Amos Tversky — confirmed his death to The Associated Press. Tversky, herself a Stanford […]

12 hours ago

Associated Press

Hawaii says 30 Lahaina fire survivors are moving into housing daily but 3,000 are still in hotels

HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said Wednesday some 3,000 people displaced by Lahaina’s wildfires are still living in hotels more than seven months after the August blaze but that up to 30 people are moving to longer-term housing each day. Green told a news conference the state and federal government have lined up […]

13 hours ago

St. Louis prosecutor to seek reelection despite ouster bid