Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office urged a judge on Thursday not to require him to sit for a deposition in his lawsuit against Jackson County, arguing county attorneys want information that “has nothing to do with the case.”

Jason Lewis, general counsel for the Attorney General’s Office, urged Clay County Circuit Judge Karen Krauser to reconsider her decision to allow Bailey to be questioned under oath about his conversation with a Jackson County official. 

Bailey is suing the county over its property assessment process.

Given the Attorney General’s Office’s caseload, Lewis said, requiring Bailey to sit for a deposition could set a troubling precedent.

“The Attorney General’s Office has profound institutional interest that a sitting statewide official cannot be deposed in every case,” Lewis said. 

Judge orders Missouri AG Andrew Bailey to sit for deposition over possible ethics breach

Krauser’s order, issued two weeks ago, came in response to a motion for sanctions Jackson County attorneys filed because of Bailey and a deputy’s conversations with Jackson County Legislator Sean Smith, which appear to have violated the rules of professional conduct set out by the Missouri Supreme Court. 

Under those rules, lawyers are not allowed to communicate with an opposing party in a lawsuit without the consent of that person’s lawyer. While Bailey doesn’t dispute the meetings occurred, he argues they were inconsequential and that the county has to exhaust other options for seeking information about the meetings before questioning a sitting attorney general. 

An outside attorney hired by Smith, also asking Krauser to overturn the order, likened Jackson County attorneys’ efforts to question Bailey over the meeting to an “atomic bomb” compared with less drastic ways to handle the issue. 

“This whole thing really appears to be a distraction from the merits of the case,” said the attorney, Brandon Boulware.

But Ryan Taylor, an attorney for Jackson County, argued the state had not been forthcoming on the issue. He quoted President Harry Truman, who “once said, ‘The buck stops here.’”

“What he meant by that was that anything that happens with his administration, he’s responsible for it,” Taylor said. 

He asked Krauser to stand by her order and allow the deposition to take place.

“If it was an innocent statement, then why can’t (he) just sit down and tell us about it?” Taylor said. 

The dispute stems from Bailey’s lawsuit against Jackson County over its property assessment process. Bailey claims the county’s process was flawed, resulting in an average 30% increase in value across hundreds of thousands of properties. 

Attorneys have argued Bailey waited too long to file the case since tax bills have already been paid and money distributed. 

Bailey’s office has maintained the attorney general did nothing wrong in meeting with Smith and described it as a “brief, casual meeting between two elected officials and their campaign staffs unrelated to the lawsuit.” A filing from Bailey’s office says “at most, a passing remark was made about the lawsuit.”

Lewis, echoing arguments in the state’s court filings, said the county should question other individuals present for the meeting before being granted access to Bailey because of a rule against depositions of top-level agency staff.

But time is short with the trial expected to wrap up in early August. 

“This is about the actions of the attorney general himself, people he was in a room with, people he talked to and what he heard,” Krauser said during Thursday’s hearing. 

Attorneys also argued over whether Jackson County’s counsel represents Smith as an individual or only the Jackson County Legislature as a body. Krauser said she believed Smith to be represented by the county’s attorneys.

Forcing a sitting attorney general to answer questions under oath is highly unusual, but Krauser said in her order that “the Missouri Attorney General’s Office is not exempt from the requirements of the state ethical rules.”

Krauser did not say during the hearing how she would rule on the request to overturn the order granting the deposition. She said she would issue a written decision Friday.

The Missouri Supreme Court halted the release of a man whose murder conviction was overturned this week, hours before he was due to be set free after spending over 30 years in prison.

Christopher Dunn, 52, was ordered by St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Jason Sengheiser to be released on Wednesday by 6 p.m., according to court documents, an order that Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey had been fighting.

Just as Dunn’s paperwork for release was being completed, the Missouri Department of Corrections received word that the Missouri Supreme Court had vacated the order, and a stay is currently in place. Dunn remains in custody and no further action is expected to occur before Monday, Missouri Department of Corrections Communications Director Karen Pojmann confirmed to USA TODAY.

The Associated Press reported that Dunn’s wife was on her way to pick him up.

Here’s what to know about Dunn’s case and overturned release order from prison.

Jan. 6: Two Jan. 6 rioters named by USA TODAY are now in prison

Why was Christopher Dunn in prison?

Dunn, who is Black, had been in prison since 1991 and was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1990 shooting of 15-year-old Ricco Rogers. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

He was 18 at the time and was convicted largely on testimony from two boys, ages 12 and 14, who both later recanted their testimonies and said they had been coerced by prosecutors and police, the Missouri Independent reported.

Why was Christopher Dunn’s conviction overturned then release blocked?

Dunn was convicted of murder and assault in 1991, but Sengheiser overturned that on Monday, finding that “in light of the new evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find Dunn guilty of these crimes beyond a reasonable doubt,” the Missouri Independent reported.

Judge William Hickle agreed at a 2020 evidentiary hearing that a jury would likely find Dunn not guilty based on new evidence, ABC News reported. Hickle did not exonerate Dunn, however, citing the 2016 Missouri Supreme Court ruling from Lincoln v. Cassady that only death row inmates can make an innocence claim.

But even after Sengheiser ordered Dunn to be released on Wednesday, Bailey appealed the ruling and the Missouri Department of Corrections denied his release while the agency waits for ruling on the appeal, NPR reported.

Contributing: Missouri Independent

New York has responded to Missouri’s requested intervention at the Supreme Court over Donald Trump’s felony hush-money convictions, arguing that the “extraordinary” attempted gambit by the Show Me State’s attorney general to sue the Empire State and shut down Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s (D) ongoing case ahead of sentencing — to the advance the “interests” of the former president — “seriously undermines the integrity of the courts and risks setting a dangerous precedent that encourages a flood of similar, unmeritorious litigation.”

Missouri AG Andrew Bailey (R) earlier this week drew attention to the opposition deadline by saying the high court had “ordered” the Empire State to respond to his motion for leave to file a bill of complaint on Wednesday. New York was always going to have to respond, but that reality does not mean the justices have taken up the case or that they will ultimately grant Bailey leave to file his complaint, even if Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito end up reasserting their individual beliefs that the court has no choice but to grant leave, as Law&Crime has discussed. This is a replay of sorts of the state v. state maneuvering that failed in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

New York, represented by its Attorney General Letitia James (D) and Solicitor General Barbara Underwood, summed up Bailey’s case as a collection of “generalized and speculative grievances of Missouri residents who wish to hear former President Trump speak in person at rallies in Missouri and fear that their ability to do so will be impaired by any sentence imposed on him, or by restrictions that have been imposed on his extrajudicial statements.”

Bailey has asked the justices for a stay of an already loosened gag order on Trump in the Manhattan case and to stay the former president’s “impending sentence” for 34 felony falsification of business records convictions at least until after the 2024 election, even if that sentence is probation.

New York has countered Missouri by telling the justices they should deny the injunction request and deny Bailey leave to file the bill of complaint. Missouri has failed to “present a proper controversy between sovereign States that falls within this Court’s original and exclusive jurisdiction” and it lacks standing because the attempted lawsuit is based on a basket full of assumptions, the opposition said.

Missouri AG Andrew Bailey speaks to reporters after taking the oath of office in 2023. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb, File)

“It is speculative, because the potential sentence and speech restrictions may prove no obstacle to the interests of people who wish to hear from former President Trump. Sentencing has already been adjourned to September at the earliest and may not occur if the trial court grants former President Trump’s pending motion to set aside the verdict,” New York responded. “And he already can speak about all of the topics that Missouri’s declarants have attested they want to hear—including his views on the Manhattan DA, witnesses, jurors, and the trial court judge.”

“Missouri’s purported injury is also generalized, rather than concrete, because it is an interest that could be asserted by anyone,” the response continued. “Ultimately, the purported injury is not sovereign because Missouri is clearly and impermissibly seeking to further the individual interests of former President Trump.”

More Law&Crime coverage: Trump appeal says civil fraud trial judge rubber-stamped ‘lawless’ Letitia James’ campaign promise to punish violations that ‘do not exist’

Trump has a state forum to challenge both the hush-money verdict and the “mostly terminated” gag order restrictions — and he’s “currently litigating those issues. In addition, most of Bailey’s complaints are filled with baked-in assumptions about a sentencing that’s already been pushed back until September, if it’s going to happen at all following SCOTUS’ immunity case ruling, New York said:

Missouri’s theory of informational harm stemming from the (now- adjourned) sentencing, for example, turns on a chain of speculative inferences, including the assumption that: sentencing will proceed in September; former President Trump will receive a sentence that restricts his travel; this sentence will not be stayed pending appeal; as a result, he will be unable to travel to Missouri when he otherwise might have; and, in turn, Missouri’s electors or voters will not be able to receive information from him personally from within Missouri. Such a “highly attenuated chain of possibilities” is clearly insufficient to establish actual or imminent sovereign injury.

Warning that rewarding Bailey’s efforts would “permit an extraordinary and dangerous end-run around former President Trump’s ongoing state court proceedings and the statutory limitations on this Court’s jurisdiction to review state court decisions,” New York said the justices should not view complaints about “former President Trump’s ability to campaign” as an “actual controversy” between states warranting SCOTUS intervention in a local prosecutor’s case against an individual defendant.

“There is no merit to Missouri’s attempts to identify a cognizable sovereign injury distinct from the individual interests of former President Trump,” the opposition said.

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