The ceremony of courtroom is now
assessing pursuant to a journey.
I don't know.
Thomas Chapman resigned.
And if you ever please be seated.
Thank you. Maybe
we're here this afternoon in the matter of.
Attorney General Andrew Bailey
versus Kim Gardner, Circuit Attorney
for the City of Saint Louis,
Case number 222322, dash
CC 00383.
Before we get started,
are there any preliminary matters?
Judge Michael Downey from Scartner.
I presume you saw that we
filed a motion to dismiss a motion
to shorten time about an hour ago.
I have not seen that yet. I understood
there were some developments.
This report, if you have copies of you now.
OK. I'm sorry, I might hear you, Yes.
And Ken, judging conversations
with posing counsel as you'll see
Miss Garner by e-mail notify the
governor that she was assigning
prior to this or that she was
resigning prior to this hearing.
So I think that's probably
shift everything else.
Thank you. That's I understood
something was going on.
So that's why I started with that.
Why don't we go ahead now that we
have that that preliminary matter out
of the way and let's go ahead and
announce the appearances first of
all for the Attorney General Relator.
Thank you.
All right. Thank you.
And for the respondent,
Michael Downing from the
starter. All right. All right.
Page. Say that. Page tomgate. Thank you.
Yes, thank you.
Johnny Jeff, 1st 20 Miles Nicolas
Cooper on behalf of the office
so conjuring's office your honor
thank you. Anyone else book or
show on behalf of the judges
of the 27 so thank you.
Any other parties or non parties
that are having council present.
Judge I can see Veronica Johnson
is on chiefs council for the
family care health centers
All right. I'll note that. All right.
I guess the motion to dismiss has been filed.
Do you want to just address that
first or how do you have an intention
how to deal with that? Mr. Corgan,
here you are. I think that makes sense.
I may please the court, certainly
about an hour or so ago,
Miss Gardner's legal team filed a motion
to dismiss the quote or until matter.
Based on her resignation,
we received word about an hour and
a half ago that Miss Miss Gardner
was resigning effective immediately.
And we've seen the e-mail and
I provided it to the court.
There's a e-mail exchange.
There's an e-mail from at 11:31
this morning from Miss Gardner to
the governor's office indicating
her intent to resign,
and then one at 1147 clarifying that.
And indicating that she was resigning today,
effective immediately,
and that she is no longer the Circuit
Attorney for the City of Saint Louis.
A short time later we received her
legal teams motion to dismiss,
along with the motion to shorten time
to have the motion to dismiss her.
The State has no objection to
having the motion heard today.
I told Mr. Downey as a courtesy.
And to be transparent that in
light of the situation,
what we would ask is I think there's a high
likelihood that these proceedings are moot.
However, there is currently not
a circuit attorney in place.
My understanding is the latest
information that I have is Mr.
Wesley Bell is was appointed as
an Assistant Circuit Attorney.
By Miss Gardner before her resignation.
She does not have the ability to
appoint him as circuit attorney,
as you, as you well know.
And that Mister Bell is interested
in serving as a circuit attorney
and is in communications with the
judges of the circuit who are
represented today by Judge Shaw
and he's in communication.
We understand the governor's office.
So
obviously this is a very
unprecedented situation.
And a very evolving and fluid situation.
And so in in in my judgment,
what makes the most sense for the court's
consideration and I mentioned this to Mr.
Downey before we began today,
is the state's position is that we
believe it would be best to defer
ruling on this motion to reset this for
hearing next Monday or Tuesday until we
see what happens later today in terms
of the appointment of a circuit attorney.
I think we'll have more clarity
on the whole situation.
And that I think in the interest of
economy and and just to be prudent that we
ought to defer the hearing on the motion.
And if a circuit attorney
is appointed in the next,
either later today or shortly,
I think there's a high likelihood that
the motion that the state will not
contest the motion and their net may
not even be a need for a hearing next week.
So that would be my counsel
for the court's consideration,
Your Honor.
Thank you, Mr. Down.
Your honor I'm not sure if
Mr. Corgan made it clear but it was my
understanding Austin were OK with the
all discovery being state. The state is
the state is fine with all discovery
being under the circumstances.
Well you know we were prepared
to argue all this short but
but in light of what's.
Recent developments and
rather dramatic developments,
frankly the state is fine with
deferring all discovery until we
see what happens next few days.
I'm actually trying to get final
consent for my client on this.
But I think frankly I think the
course of action they're proposing
is a reasonable one that we stay
all discovery which obviously
there are depositions noticed
up for the next couple of days.
They're pending subpoenas.
All of that will just be stayed and it
will wait until we have some sort of
interim circuit attorney in and then
go ahead left the case be dismissed.
So would it be acceptable to the parties
that I just take the motion to dismiss
under advisement for now and we could
pick a day early next week to have a
hearing and then maybe maybe Tuesday.
So that would give the state the
opportunity to maybe file its dismissal
or its consent to sustaining the motion
to dismiss whatever you wish and.
So maybe Tuesday next week,
I got to look at.
I think that would work for me.
Would that work
And again, I think there's a reasonable
likelihood and we will not need to
have that, but I think scheduled
for Tuesday makes perfect sense.
And judge, you have two pending
motions to stay, one that was filed
by Miss Gardner and one that was filed
by the Circuit Attorney's office.
I think effectively granting either of
both of those will stay all the discovery,
All right. So I will sustain.
You know the states that the state's motion
to stay the discovery and I will take
the motion to dismiss under advisement.
We'll set the matter over for a I
guess we'll just call it another status
conference and if there's anything changed
we can I won't rule on that motion to
dismiss until the status conference,
but maybe things will be finished
before we even need to have that.
So why don't we do that and we'll
just set it what is Tuesday,
next Tuesday is the.
23rd, so let's set it for next
Tuesday the 23rd at 1:30 PM for
status conference on that date.
And I would ask somebody just to
prepare an order of memorializing
what we're doing here today.
Mr. Corrigan, why don't you
prepare that and and have Mr.
Downey review it and then send it on
to me and when we'll we'll do that.
Excuse me.
I am. That's that's where I'm actually going
to be next Tuesday. OK,
that's fine, that's fine.
We can do that for the parties that
persons that need to appear virtually.
Excuse me, are you OK with
just a hand in order today?
That's fine. That's fine.
Or if you wish you can you can
submit it before the end of the day,
I'll be we just submit something written
just to kind of memorialize what we
did here today that would be fine.
And anything else that we
need to address today, that's
fine. I'm saying that is in depositions
of document production based
on schedules, would you state your name?
My client. So I want to make
sure any deposition date,
any date of deduction is now stay and
that would be determined that later
I would yes, I think that's I think
that there were very there motions
to quash and I would assume that the
parties will withdraw their motion,
their their subpoenas or at
least agree to continue them
and and reset those subpoenas or
reset those deposition dates.
In the meantime
we will we will reset them. OK,
Thank you. Anything else today?
All right, we will adjourn. All right. The
serve on the courtroom will
be in recess the next Tuesday.