(NewsGlobal.com)- According to reports, Kim Gardner, the prosecutor for the city of St. Louis, has been handed an ultimatum by Missouri’s Republican attorney general, Andrew Bailey. She was told to resign by Thursday at noon or be removed.
Bailey revealed the information in a quick sequence of tweets he issued on Wednesday evening. In these tweets, he threatened to use the authority of his own office to remove her from her position if she failed to willingly resign.
He explained that they are giving Kim Gardner until tomorrow at noon to resign from her position. If she did not comply, the department would immediately initiate removal procedures against her through a quo warranto petition.
According to Cornel University’s School of Law, Quo Warranto is the Latin phrase meaning “by what warrant (or authority).”
Common law provides a remedy known as a writ of quo warranto that may be used to contest an individual’s eligibility to occupy an office, whether public or corporate.
Revocation of a corporation’s charter by a state may also be accomplished via a quo warranto proceeding. Individual members of the public have the standing to submit a petition for writ of quo warranto.
Reports reveal Kim Gardner has been under criticism since she assumed office in 2016 on a “criminal justice reform” platform. She neglected to prosecute many severe crimes in addition to ending the prosecution of what she believed to be low-level offenses. She also established a blacklist of St. Louis Police Department personnel and then declined to pursue any offenses that they reported to her office.
According to reports, the Supreme Court of Missouri issued a reprimand and a monetary punishment to the St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner in August of 2022 after concluding that she broke professional misconduct guidelines while conducting the investigation of former Governor of Missouri Eric Greitens.
In April, Gardner and the Chief Disciplinary Counsel Alan Pratzel reached an agreement in which Gardner admitted to failing to give documents to a judge for review and failing to correct lies from a paid investigator during her investigation of Greitens.
The agreement was reached as part of Gardner’s plea to be released from further disciplinary action.
