JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Supreme Court sided with Stoddard County in issuing an order this week saying the state's public defenders cannot refuse to accept cases of indigent defendants without going through the proper statutory procedures.
On Sept. 28, the public defender for the 35th Judicial Circuit, along with several other public defenders across the state, "informed the courts that they would no longer be accepting any new criminal defendants as clients," according to a news release from Stoddard County Prosecuting Russ Oliver.
The stated reason for their refusal, Oliver said, was their "excessive case loads."
On Oct. 4, in front of Presiding Circuit Judge Robert Mayer, Oliver said, the public defender refused to represent three indigent defendants.
The three defendants -- Scott Ash of Dexter, Mo., Ashton Chadd of Advance, Mo., and Joshua Whitehead of Puxico, Mo. -- all were convicted of felonies and were facing revocation of their probations, according to Casenet.
Oliver subsequently filed a motion to require the public defender to represent the indigent individuals.
Oliver reportedly cited statutes, which provide that a public defender may not refuse to represent an indigent defendant until he or she obtains approval from the local circuit judge.
"The statutes also provide a mechanism in which that approval can be obtained," Oliver said.
A public defender, he said, may file a motion with the judge stating his or her case load concerns. A hearing then reportedly is held for the judge to determine if the public defender's concerns are valid.
Each party, Oliver said, then has the right to appeal to the appellate courts.
"Contrary to the requirements of those statutes, the public defender simply unilaterally decided that they would no longer be accepting cases, " Oliver said.
Mayer, he said, found the public defender had failed to follow the statutory procedures and ordered the public defender system to represent the three defendants.
Oliver said on Oct. 11, the director of the public defender system, Michael Barrett, and the district defender, Leslie Hazel, filed a petition for writ of prohibition with the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, "seeking to bar Judge Mayer from ordering them to represent the three defendants."
The appellate court reportedly denied their petition on Friday.
On Monday, the attorneys filed what Oliver described as the same petition for writ of prohibition with the Missouri Supreme Court.
On behalf of Mayer, Oliver filed a response the next morning, and later in the day, the Supreme Court issued its order.
That order says the public defenders' writ of prohibition is denied and further says they have to invoke the statutory process in an individual case in which a public defender has been appointed to refuse taking the case.
"This Supreme Court ruling is a significant and vital victory to ensure that our criminal justice system does not shut down, not only in Stoddard County, but across the entire state of Missouri," Oliver said.
The Supreme Court, according to Oliver, has made "very clear through this ruling that the relief the public defenders are seeking must be done through the correct statutory procedures ..."
Those procedures, Oliver said, were passed by the Missouri Legislature after extensive input from the public defenders and for their benefit in 2013.
"This means that the entire court system, the judges, the prosecutors and the public defenders, will be involved in the discussion rather than one person making the unilateral decision to shut down the courts," Oliver explained.