St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner submitted her resignation to Missouri Governor Mike Parson (R) after facing mass criticism from lawmakers after a series of missteps.
Gardner, St. Louis’s first black circuit attorney, was elected in 2017 during a national wave of support for progressive prosecutors who pledged to dramatically alter the criminal justice system.
Within months, she came under scrutiny for a number of staff departures.
Then, only a year into office, she indicted then-sitting Governor Eric Greitens for allegedly taking a partially nude photograph of a woman without her consent.
However, the charges were eventually dropped as the investigator she hired pleaded guilty in federal court to concealing evidence, and Gardner herself was forced to pay a $750 fee over her office’s mishandling of evidence related to the case.
She faced further public criticism over an “exclusion list” she kept of St. Louis police officers she did not trust to work with.
Despite her first term struggles, she was reelected to a second term in 2020.
But it went similarly to her first, with another wave of staff departures leaving her with half the number of attorneys as when she took office.
The scandals around her intensified in February, when a speeding car crash lead to a teen volleyball player being pinned between two cars, eventually losing her legs to amputation. The driver, Daniel Riley, was out on bond for a 2020 robbery charge.
Despite violating the conditions of his bond dozens of times before the crash, Riley was not put back in jail. Gardner’s office was blamed for her lax policies that lead to her office delaying his trial without filing to revoke Riley’s bond.
As a result, many of Gardner’s remaining allies turned on her, calling for her resignation. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a lawsuit to remove her from office.
She attempted to blame her subordinates instead of taking responsibility, which lead even more prosecutors to resign en masse.
By the end of this week, it was clear she had no choice but to resign.
She should be out on her butt! All she has done is hurt honest citizens & let criminals walk, like all those Soros backed to jack up our legal system!