A St. Louis County judge has ruled that Gov. Mike Parson has the authority to fill the vacancy in the office of St. Louis County prosecuting attorney.
In a decision handed down late Friday, Circuit Judge Brian May of the 21st Circuit ordered county executive Sam Page to take no further steps toward filling the vacancy. The decision will be appealed.
Parson and Page had each claimed the authority to replace Wesley Bell, who will be sworn into Congress on Jan. 3. Parson and Attorney General Andrew Bailey sued Page on Nov. 27, a few weeks after he announced he was accepting applications for the position. While both men have named their pick for the post, the sides have agreed not to take any further action until there is a final decision. Parson selected Melissa Price Smith, and Page chose Cort VanOstran.
The case boiled down to essentially one question: Is the office of prosecuting attorney a county office or a state office?
In his ruling, May wrote that because the prosecutor issues criminal charges on the behalf of the state, the office of prosecuting attorney is necessarily a state office carrying out governmental functions. Therefore, he said, the power to fill a vacancy in the office belongs to the governor.
“The Court concludes that a county prosecuting attorney, like a circuit court judge, is an officer of the State and not merely the county in which he or she is elected or appointed,” May wrote. “This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that a county prosecuting attorney's authority is not limited to crimes that only occurred within the geographic boundaries of his or her county.”
A spokesman for Parson said the governor had always been “confident in his legal authority to name the St. Louis County Prosecutor, and we are happy to see the Courts affirm our position, as expected.”
Attorneys for the county had argued that Parson’s power to fill vacancies was limited by state law that gave certain authority to counties with their own charter.
“The voice of St. Louis County residents is taken away when charter language is ignored,” Doug Moore, a spokesman for Page, said in a statement.
In his public comments about the dispute, Page has consistently pointed out that Parson had no problem with Steve Ehlmann, the Republican county executive in St. Charles, naming a replacement for Tim Lohmar in 2023. The county’s court filings had also noted that governors of all parties have never before appointed prosecutors in a charter county. May said that didn’t matter.
“There is no indication that any such county action resulted in litigation, let alone a determination by a court concerning the issues presented here,” he said.
Bell, the current officeholder, said in a statement that while he was “not pleased with the precedent set by the Governor superseding local authority,” he had “always thought Melissa Price Smith a highly capable and competent leader of the prosecuting attorney's office.”
This story has been updated with comments from Gov. Parson.
