Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem on Friday dismissed State Public Defender Michael Barrett's July lawsuit challenging Gov. Jay Nixon's decision to withhold $3.5 million from the system's appropriations.
Beetem's four-page ruling said Nixon has the constitutional authority to withhold the money.
Barrett didn't issue any statement following Friday afternoon's release of the judge's ruling.
Nixon praised it.
"Today's order once again affirms the clear authority of the Governor to rein in spending and keep the budget in balance," the governor said in a news release. "This constitutional authority has enabled me to maintain strict fiscal discipline, protect Missouri's spotless AAA credit rating, and keep our economy moving forward."
Barrett's lawsuit argued the public defenders are an independent part of Missouri's judicial branch of government and therefore not an executive agency subject to the governor's budget controls.
The state's public defenders represent poor people in criminal cases where there is a possibility of a jail or prison sentence, and the person charged can't afford to hire his or her own attorney.
Beetem noted judicial power is defined in Black's Law Dictionary as "the authority vested in the courts and judges to hear and decide cases and to make binding judgments on them; the power to construe and apply the law when controversies arise over what has been done or not done under (the law)."
He wrote: "Because Plaintiffs are the entity delegated to fulfill the State's obligation for indigent defense established by (the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in) Gideon v. Wainwright, they are clearly an agency of the state," and subject to the constitution's language describing the governor's withholding power.
The judge added: "The defense of indigent defendants is not the exercise of judicial power.
"Plaintiffs certainly do not legislate. They exercise executive powers, not withstanding their placement on the organization chart."
The public defenders' lawsuit also argued the governor's withholding violated Missouri's Constitution, when he withheld more money from the public defender system's budget than he withheld from other budget lines.
But, Beetem ruled, that's a part of the governor's constitutional power to "reduce the expenditures of the state or any of its agencies below their appropriations. There is no requirement that any withholdings reduce the expenditures of the state as a whole."
For years, the public defender system and its supervising commission have argued their attorneys carry an almost impossible workload - which, some have argued, is so large the attorneys can't provide appropriate legal services and therefore violates the defendants' constitutional right to legal services.
In August, Jacqueline Shipma, the public defenders' general counsel, told Beetem: "Because we can't spend this $3.5 million the Legislature appropriated to us, we can't fill vacant attorney positions - positions we couldn't fill last year because of budget shortfalls."
In his statement Friday, Nixon repeated an argument he's made several times this summer: "As a result of our fiscal discipline, the Office of Public Defender has seen a 15 percent increase in funding and a nearly five percent increase in staff during my tenure, even while other state agencies have had to tighten their belts and full-time state employment has been reduced by nearly 5,100.
"It is my hope that 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."
Last summer, Barrett countered that argument by saying 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.
Also, Barrett said in August, Nixon has failed 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."