Court of Appeals: Governor can't be sued over public defender caseloads
The governor and the state cannot be sued for cutting the budget of the Missouri Public Defender’s office but a lawsuit arguing that the system is not adequately serving indigent defendants will go to trial.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled that sovereign immunity protects the state and the governor from the class-action lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Missouri.
The governor doesn’t have enough direct connection to the operations of the public defender system to be a proper defendant, the appeals court ruled. The court also ruled that legislative immunity protects the governor from a lawsuit over his decision to withhold money appropriated by lawmakers to the public defender system.
The appeals court ruling reverses a decision from U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey, who ruled in July 2017 that the governor and the state were proper parties to the case.
Read more: https://www.columbiatribune.com/news/20190110/court-of-appeals-governor-cant-be-sued-over-public-defender-caseloads