Missouri's Public Defender Commission this weekend welcomed the three new members Gov. Jay Nixon named Friday afternoon.
Noting the commission had only two members until two years ago, Commission Chairman Riley Bock said Saturday, in a news release: "Missouri's Public Defender System was not a high priority of the governor's office for quite some time.
"We are hoping that Gov. Nixon's renewed interest in the system, as illustrated by finally making these three appointments, will not end here."
Because the Legislature isn't in session, the appointees can begin serving immediately but still are subject to the Missouri Senate's confirmation when the new General Assembly session begins in January.
The governor appointed Jefferson County Sheriff Oliver Glenn Boyer, D-Crystal City; former St. Charles County Sheriff Thomas W. Neer, R-Defiance; and St. Louis County lawyer James J. Sievers, D-Des Peres, who has worked as a public defender and whose private law practice includes criminal defense work.
The other commissioners are former Highway Patrolman and state Public Safety Director Charles Jackson, of Fulton; Craig Chival, of Columbia; and Christa Hogan, of Springfield.
Nixon's appointments Friday filled two vacancies on the state commission and replaced one member whose term had expired.
Bock noted Sievers' appointment "results in the end of Commissioner Doug Copeland's service on the commission. Doug was our longest serving member, and of course, we will miss his experience."
Copeland has been arguing for better funding and support for Missouri's public defender system for many years - even before he was the Missouri Bar state president in 2005-06, when the Bar created a Public Defender Task Force to study continuing issues.
Missouri's public defender system, as well as similar systems in other states, was set up in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court rulings that the U.S. Constitution's 6th and 14th Amendments require the state to make sure people get a lawyer even if they can't afford one when they are charged with crimes that could lead to jail or prison sentences.
State Public Defender Michael Barrett, who was hired by the commission and manages the public defender system's daily operations, said, "We welcome new perspectives as we continue efforts to make sure that the right to counsel remains guaranteed to indigent persons who are charged with a criminal offense."
Nixon said: "I am pleased to make these appointments, as I believe these new members will help the Public Defender Commission return to its focus of providing proper legal representation to indigent Missourians."
Barrett told the News Tribune he was "focusing on (his) oral argument for Tuesday," when Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem hears arguments on a lawsuit Barrett and the commissioners filed last month, challenging Nixon's decision to withhold $3.5 million of the Legislature's $4.5 million increase in the agency's budget.
In the lawsuit - and in a later letter to Nixon - Barrett accused the governor of failing to support the public defender system "that continues to rank 49th in the U.S., with a budget that the consumer price index indicates has less value now than it did in 2009."
That's the year Nixon began serving as Missouri's governor, but Nixon has argued his administration has increased public defender funding "by over 15 percent."
Barrett countered the governor is talking about all funds to the public defender system - including pay raises - and not just to increases in the services provided by overworked attorneys.
In his Aug. 2 letter to Nixon, Barrett complained the governor's recent $3.5 million withholding was a larger hit than any other state agency received.
And in that letter, Barrett appointed Nixon to serve as a defense attorney in a Cole County criminal case, and local Public Defender Justin Carver asked that his office be removed from that case because of the appointment.
Barrett argues one section of state law gives the director the power to "delegate the legal representation of any person to any member of the state bar of Missouri."
Nixon's office cites a different section of the same state law chapter - the one defining the public defender system's duties and operations - saying it gives only the state's courts the power to appoint lawyers to act as public defenders.
And Cole County Presiding Circuit Judge Pat Joyce agreed in a docket entry made in the local criminal case on Thursday.
She denied Carver's motion to withdraw from the case and said the section of law Barrett cited "does not grant the State Public Defender the authority to appoint counsel. Only the courts have the power to appoint lawyers."
No one in the public defender system, including Barrett, has said they will appeal Joyce's order, and some lawyers believe it's not the kind of order that can be appealed.
After Joyce issued the order Thursday afternoon, Barrett said, in a news release: "We are disappointed but not surprised. We have long been at the bottom nationwide in public defense funding.
"This will not come easy, but we will continue until equal justice becomes a reality in Missouri. The Missouri Public Defender's Office will continue to fight so that the Bill of Rights is guaranteed to everyone."
Nixon's office praised Joyce's decision.
"Three years ago, we passed common-sense legislation to assist the Public Defender in managing caseloads," Nixon said in a statement, "and established a specific legal process by which the circuit court, and only the circuit court, can appoint private attorneys to provide representation to indigent criminal defendants."
He noted that law change "had broad support, including from the Public Defender Commission and the then-executive director," who was Cat Kelly. Barrett succeeded Kelly when she retired in May 2015.
Nixon said: "The current executive director (Barrett) has ignored this law, instead engaging in publicity stunts that waste taxpayer resources and distract from their (the commission's) important work.
"From the outset, it was clear that the (State Public Defender) did not have the legal authority to appoint private counsel.
"It is my hope that following (Thursday's) order denying this patently unlawful action, the Office of Public Defender will now return its attention to the job it has to do and the resources already available with which to do it."