果酱视频

ST. LOUIS 鈥� Judge John Torbitzky channeled his inner Dad, the one driving the minivan on a cross-country summer vacation. The one who turns to his bickering children in the back and threatens to pull over.

He did it. She did it. It wasn鈥檛 me.

So went the first hearing in the historic lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey against 果酱视频 Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. Bailey is seeking to oust Gardner from her job for neglect of duties. There was new urgency to this long-simmering problem: the hearing came the day after a different judge moved to hold Gardner in contempt when nobody from the prosecutor鈥檚 office showed up for a murder trial.

Bailey鈥檚 office has filed multiple subpoenas seeking a broad sweep of records, more than 60 different types of them. Gardner鈥檚 office hasn鈥檛 produced any records and has denied the need to do so on the majority of them.

That鈥檚 what the attorneys for the two politicians were arguing about Tuesday for much of the four-hour hearing before Torbitzky.

鈥淭here has been no discussion,鈥� said deputy attorney general Bill Corrigan, 鈥渘ot a single discussion about the circuit attorney鈥檚 office producing a single document.鈥�

It was about an hour into the hearing when Torbitzky, whose day job is an appeals judge in Missouri鈥檚 Eastern District, did what somebody should have done with Gardner and Bailey long ago. He pointed to the closed doors in the back of the fourth-floor courtroom in the Civil Courts building downtown. There鈥檚 a room across the hall, he said. Go there, go point-by-point through the subpoenas and let me know if you can agree on what records can be produced, he told the lawyers.

鈥淧art of my concern is you鈥檙e just now, today, gone to talk to somebody about this,鈥� Torbitzky said. 鈥淭he people of this state and this city are going to want an answer sooner rather than later.鈥�

The meeting took more than an hour. Little was accomplished. Then, a former judge, Booker T. Shaw, offered a few words toward the end of the hearing. Shaw has been hired by the judges of the 22nd Circuit Court. All of those judges recused themselves from handling this case for good reason: they might be called as witnesses. That鈥檚 why the Missouri Supreme Court appointed Torbitzky to handle the case. It鈥檚 why Shaw stood to address the court.

Those looking from the outside might see this as nothing but a political battle. Bailey, appointed to his job by Gov. Mike Parson, is a Republican who has made a habit of filing lawsuits that seem to be designed to get him face time on Fox News.

Gardner, a Democrat, is casting herself as a victim. She blames her woes on staff members, racism and, well, anybody but herself. Yes, politics and race are involved here. But the reality is, no matter who is at fault, Gardner鈥檚 office is bleeding staff members so quickly that the criminal justice system can鈥檛 work. Judges potentially face the difficult decision of letting people charged with violent crimes go free because Gardner can鈥檛 do her job.

There is no justice 鈥� for victims, for defendants, for anybody.

The situation, Shaw told Torbitzky, is 鈥渦ntenable and unsustainable.鈥� Gardner鈥檚 office, he said, is in 鈥渘ear total collapse.鈥�

Those words, particularly coming from Shaw, packed a punch. Torbitzky pulled the minivan over and laid down the law. He set a tentative trial date for Sept. 25.

The lawyers in the courtroom suggested getting ready for a trial that quickly, with dozens of complicated evidence disputes still to play out, would be a Herculean task. But the date creates another pressure point in a morality play that likely has more twists coming. Nobody in the courtroom really wants this case to go to trial. The legal bar for Bailey鈥檚 attorneys to force Gardner out of office is a high one. Most similar actions in Missouri have involved the sort of corruption and self-dealing that aren鈥檛 at play in this case.

But between now and Sept. 25, if there are no more prosecutors in Gardner鈥檚 office who can show up for murder trials, then perhaps she learns a lesson from an early chapter of her tenure. Five years ago, former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens resigned his office in shame, in part because he faced criminal charges filed by Gardner. Those charges were eventually dropped, but not until they turned up the pressure on Greitens and he slunk away, at least for a while.

There would be little shame in Gardner finally realizing it鈥檚 time to walk away. Witness the actions of Tim Lohmar, who, after some embarrassing personal stumbles, gave up his office recently as the prosecutor in St. Charles County. The story was forgotten in a day.

That won鈥檛 happen if Sept. 25 comes and the political show trial of the year begins. That trial ends with no winners, only losers, most notably the citizens of 果酱视频, who are desperate for prosecutors who can show up for work.