When the wave of reform prosecutors that began with Ayala and Foxx started growing to larger jurisdictions, the backlash was immediate. “History will show that we’ve not seen this much attention and attacks on prosecutors and policies when it was aimed toward more punitiveness,” Foxx told The Intercept in her first in-depth interview since the announcement. Rick Scott over her refusal to seek the death penalty in a case former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was recalled last year and Kim Foxx, the prosecutor in Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, who announced last month she would not run for reelection. Thursday’s announcement makes Gardner the fourth reform prosecutor elected in recent years to leave office, following former Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala, who faced attacks from then Republican Gov. “What we’re seeing across the country is state-level overreach and resistance to reform.” “This is not unique to Kim Gardner,” said Jill Habig, founder and president of the Public Rights Project, a civil rights nonprofit that has tracked the growing number of preemption bills. At least 17 states have tried to pass similar measures since 2017, soon after reform prosecutors started winning elections. Missouri Republicans ramped up efforts this week to advance the bill, which would allow the governor to appoint a special prosecutor in any jurisdiction to handle cases said to include a “threat to public safety.”ĭozens of similar preemption bills filed in recent years target reform-minded prosecutors across the country.

Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, a reform-minded prosecutor who was first elected in 2016 and again by an overwhelming majority in 2020, announced Thursday that she would resign following threats from the Missouri state legislature to pass a bill stripping her office of power.

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