Governor Called To Serve As Public Defender

Missouri’s chief public defender, Michael Barrett, warned Gov. Jay Nixon that if his office’s budget was cut, he would try to force Nixon to serve as a public defender. When a lawsuit he filed was ignored, Barrett invoked a state law that allows him to appoint lawyers to his office. Nixon, a former Missouri state attorney general and an active member of the state bar, was the first appointee. “[G]iven the extraordinary circumstances that compel me to entertain any and all avenues for relief … I hereby appoint you, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Bar No. 29603, to enter your appearance as counsel of record in the attached case,” Barrett wrote in a letter. A spokesman for the governor told the Wall Street Journal, “It is well established that the public defender does not have the legal authority to appoint private counsel.” But Barrett disagrees: “He is a lawyer in good standing who chose not to go on inactive status with the Bar. I see no provision that makes him special.”