Attorney General Chris Koster doesn't think Gov. Jay Nixon will act as a public defender - even though state Public Defender Michael Barrett appointed Nixon a week ago to serve as a defense lawyer in a Cole County criminal case.
"I don't think we're going to get to that actually," Koster told reporters after appearing at the Missouri Farm Bureau's political action committee meeting as a candidate to succeed Nixon.
"In terms of my representation of him today on this situation, no, I don't think the governor is likely to be in court representing individuals."
In an Aug. 2 letter to Nixon, Barrett cited his statutory authority to "delegate the legal representation of any person to any member of the state bar of Missouri."
But the governor's office said Barrett doesn't have that power.
Nixon reminded reporters Monday he had signed a bill "to lay out that if there is private counsel needed, what the process you'd go through to do that. This (appointment by Barrett) is not that process, and so I think that they should have to follow the law like everybody else should."
That 2013 law allows a district defender - the head of a local public defender office - to file a motion to request a conference to discuss caseload issues involving any individual public defender or defenders but not the entire office with the presiding judge of any circuit court served by the district office.
After holding that conference, the law gives the presiding circuit judge several options to help ease the public defenders' caseload, including appointing "private counsel to represent any eligible defendant."
Barrett agrees that is the process for a court appointment but noted the section Nixon's office cites also said: "Nothing in this section shall deny any party the right to seek any relief authorized by law."
Barrett argued that includes using his power to appoint any member of the bar as a defense lawyer for a qualifying client.
If Nixon ultimately takes the assigned case, he would be representing Johnny Dean Quehl, 60, of 7646 Route M, who was charged in March 2015 with two counts of second-degree assault by operating a vehicle while intoxicated and having an accident that injured two children.
The News Tribune report of the Oct. 31, 2014, accident said Quehl was westbound in the 1700 block of U.S. 50-63 - west of the Eastland Drive interchange - when he lost control of his 2003 Jeep Liberty about 1:57 p.m.
Some witnesses told police the Jeep "just began to slide in its lane" before it went off the right side of the highway and overturned down an embankment.
Two unnamed boys, ages 3 and 4, were injured and treated at a local hospital, then released into their parents' custody.
The case was bound over to the Cole County Circuit Court last Aug. 27 and assigned to the public defender's office.
The online court records show the next hearing in the case is set for 10 a.m. Aug. 17.
Although the circuit clerk's office identified the case as the one Barrett appointed Nixon to, that information has not yet been included in the court records.
Madeleine Leroux and Jeff Haldiman of the News Tribune staff contributed information used in this story.