Eight Missouri counties have no candidates in sight for their next prosecutor

Some rural Missouri counties are hurtling toward Aug. 2 elections without a single candidate for their next part-time prosecuting attorney.

The eight counties, all rural, have a lot in common. They offer part-time pay and one administrative assistant. Each county’s total population of attorneys, including its prosecuting attorney and judge, also are in the single digits.

It’s a problem that appears to have worsened in the last decade. In 2011, Missouri Lawyers Weekly reported that only two counties, Schuyler County and Worth County, had required a governor-appointed prosecutor in the last election.

Part-time pay for a full-time caseload

Ginger Koller-Joyner knew what she was getting into before she was first appointed as Reynolds County’s prosecuting attorney after her predecessor, Michael Randazzo, was elected circuit judge. A mentor had told her that there was no such thing as a part-time prosecuting attorney, and that continuing her private practice at the same time would not supplement her income.

“I am on call and need to be accessible 365 days a year, which is fine with me. I knew that, I signed up for that,” Joyner said. “But you have to figure out ways you can make up the income difference, because I have a student loan payment just like an attorney that lives in St. Louis.”

On top of her appointment to Reynolds County’s prosecuting attorney and her private practice in Wayne County, Joyner also serves as child support attorney for Iron, Reynolds and Wayne counties as well as interim assistant prosecutor for Wayne County. She’s running for prosecutor in Wayne County because it’s closer to her family — and it offers a full-time salary.

“I don’t want to imply anything negative about choosing Wayne over Reynolds, that’s not the case,” Joyner said. “But obviously, if I have an opportunity to have a full-time salary as opposed to a half-time salary and try to make up the difference elsewhere, then it seems like a beneficial choice for me at the time.”

Prosecuting attorneys also can’t take on criminal defendants and others as clients. April S. Wilson had carved out a private practice in high-conflict domestic cases with heavy litigation. She had to drop that niche when she became prosecutor. She still has a private practice, but she also operates as Scotland County’s prosecuting attorney from that office.

When no one runs for prosecutor, the governor appoints one from outside the county. A statement from the office of Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft confirmed the eight counties that will require it.

“While the numbers may indicate a growing trend, there is a system in place to handle vacancies,” a June 7 statement said. “Although the appointment process may resolve the issue, the underlying problem arises when Missourians are deprived of their right to choose the candidate.”

Wilson also serves in nearby Clark County. She first started doing this on top of her Scotland County duties to finish Holly Conger-Koenig’s term in 2021, after Conger-Koenig became associate circuit judge for the 1st Judicial Circuit. When no one sought election for the next term, Gov. Michael Parson appointed Wilson for another four years.

Between her private practice office as Scotland County prosecutor and in her designated office at the courthouse in Clark County, Wilson handles between 1,500 and 1,700 cases. Wilson is running for Scotland County again, but she said she’s not sure if she can continue keeping up with Clark County’s caseload, which she says is three times larger than Scotland County.

“To be considered part time in both counties with no assistant prosecutors and only one full-time staff member in each office, that’s really the work of a lot more than one-and-a-half person per office,” Wilson said.

She said higher pay and more in-office resources for prosecutors like her is part of the solution, but she’s not sure where that money could come from other than the legislature.

“It’s difficult, because some of these counties, they can barely put gravel on the roads. So how are they going to pay more money for attorneys?” Wilson said.

Breaking point

Sullivan County Prosecuting Attorney Brian Keedy said that he’s moved to Putnam County and is running for its associate circuit judge vacancy, which is three times more than his pay as prosecutor.

Keedy is a former Camden County prosecuting attorney. When he lost the election in 2014, he was appointed to Sullivan County’s vacancy and ran unopposed again last term. His retirement funds from his time as a former full-time prosecutor have supplemented an estimated $46,000 salary.

Keedy’s brother, Putnam County prosecuting attorney Tom Keedy, is a former judge who started his law career as prosecutor in his hometown because he had a place to live and could start his practice from scratch.

“You simply can’t do that anymore,” he said.

Keedy is now 72, and he’s not running for another term in Putnam County. Keedy in Sullivan County planned to retire at 62, and he’s 66.

“Quite frankly it’s because in a couple counties, the people that have been doing it just have reached the age that they can’t or won’t anymore,” Keedy said.

At the very least, Keedy in Sullivan County thinks there needs to be a new salary structure.

“I certainly think that there’s ways that you can create some type of a scale for part-time prosecutors that would compensate them for the amount of work that you have to do that’s not tied to caseload,” Keedy said.

Wilson can recall conversations with the late Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Knight, who struggled to fill and keep assistant prosecuting attorneys even in a more competitive, populous office.

“We do have a crisis coming,” Wilson said. “And there’s not very many Dan Knights in this community that are just in it for 16, 17 years as prosecutor — 29 years total as a prosecutor — that just dedicated his life to that type of work.”

Solutions from across the aisle

Some solutions could be mined from a foil to the prosecutors’ office: the Missouri State Public Defender. 

Prosecuting attorneys in part-time roles are making less than their public defender counterparts. Public defenders can also have their cases offloaded when their caseload is too heavy.

“I’m over here doing the same cases for less money and only supposed to work 20 hours a week,” Wilson said.

On top of a recent increase from the state legislature in public defenders’ starting salary, the MSPD is padding its vacancies by bringing on 20 hires who will take the state bar exam in August, as well as four Missouri Justice Fellows, who will serve as public defenders for two years while also identifying jurisdictional issues. It also has expanded its recruitment to out-of-state law schools.

The MSPD has vacancies for assistant public defenders assigned to areas that include those same eight counties, but not for its district defenders.

MSPD Executive Director Mary Fox said the vacancies for MSPD and for prosecutor’s offices is a symptom of a larger problem.

“The reality is that right now, there are not enough attorneys up there to handle the number of cases that are coming through the criminal system,” Fox said.