Franklin County prosecutor weighs in on Gore's selection

Becker told The Missourian he recently participated in a meeting with prosecutors from other counties in the St. Louis region to talk about what they could do to assist Gore’s office.

“I don’t have anybody I could send in there on a 40-hour-a-week basis,” Becker said. “Do we have people that could come in and help issue a backlog of cases, you know, eight hours a week or something like that? We could handle something like that.”

He added, however, that the challenges facing the circuit attorney’s office are far beyond what his office could meet, even if he dropped everything else he was doing to dedicate his entire staff to the job.

“Even if I sent every attorney in my office, he needs a lot more help than everyone, and I don’t have people just sitting around here with nothing to do,” Becker said, adding that the same was true for other prosecutors in the region.

“None of the smaller counties, Jefferson, Lincoln, St. Charles even, are in a position where we can say, you know, ‘Here’s three full-time attorneys.’ None of us could do that,” he said. “Everybody who can do something is offering to do what they can.”

Gov. Mike Parson appointed Gore to the position of St. Louis circuit attorney on May 19 following Gardner’s abrupt resignation three days earlier. Gardner had initially announced on May 4 that she would resign effective June 1, following widespread criticism of her leadership of the circuit attorney’s office, where she had served since 2017.

Reflecting on his own time working at the St. Louis circuit attorney’s office from 2004 to 2008, Becker said a lot has changed since then, and Gore has a tough job ahead of him.

“When I was there, we had 60 or 70 prosecutors, and some of them were, you know, very, very seasoned, doing nothing but murder cases, just some of the finest trial attorneys in the state, and no one would argue with that,” Becker said. “They are all gone.”

Although Gore was named as the new circuit attorney two weeks ago, he was only sworn in on Tuesday, Becker noted.

“I think on his end, what’s likely going on is he’s getting his top staff together, they’re looking in and trying to figure out what their first priorities need to be,” he said. “I think the expression is he’s drinking from a fire hose right now.”

Becker added, however, that as Gore begins to resolve some of the problems at the circuit attorney’s office, he hopes there will be continued communication and coordination with surrounding jurisdictions.

“There really just hasn’t been a collaboration with the circuit attorney’s office like there used to be,” he said. “For the last several years, they kind of did their thing, we kind of did our thing.”

Criminals don’t always limit their illicit activities to a single city or county, he added.

“They commit crimes in Jefferson County, Franklin County, St. Charles County, and one of the things that happens is prosecutors in those counties say ‘Hey, I’ve got him on this, you’ve got him on that. What do you know? What can I do?’ And we don’t just resolve, you know, the case, we resolve that universe of crime that that defendant has been involved in,” Becker said. “And that really hasn’t been going on with the circuit attorney’s office for some time.”

He also added, though, that it is not just a matter of making improvements within the circuit attorney’s office, and that a renewed effort toward closer cooperation between prosecutors throughout the region will be a win-win for everyone.

“Crime is a regional issue,” Becker said. “Our fentanyl dealers, where do they get their fentanyl from? They’re going into St. Louis. So making efforts to deter crime in St. Louis will help us out too.”