Pulling the purse strings

Members of the House Budget Committee refused to hear a budget presentation from Mary Fox, Director Missouri State Public Defender’s Office, renewing lawmakers’ objections to the employment of David Spears. Spears is employed in the West Plains Public Defender’s office and has been on state payrolls off and on since 2016, as previously reported by Howell County News. 

 

Lawmakers are calling for the termination of his employment because of Spears’ connection to the abduction, rape, and murder of his nine-year-old stepdaughter, Rowan Ford. Though initially charged with the murder, Spears was convicted of endangering the welfare of a child and hindering prosecution, a class C and D felonies, respectively. A family friend confessed to and was found guilty of the murder and rape. Christopher Collings was executed on Dec. 3, 2024 for these crimes. 

 

Representative Lane Roberts, though not a member of the budget committee, was recognized by Chair Dirk Deaton to make inquiries of Fox before she began her budget presentation. Rep. Roberts authored a letter signed by Deaton and more than a dozen other Representatives, demanding the Missouri State Public Defender Commission to terminate Spears and, “to develop hiring protocols that will ensure that such monumentally foolish hiring decisions are prevented in the future.”

 

Rep. Deaton read a summary of the disappearance and death of Rowan Ford at the Feb 13. hearing, asked his own questions before giving the floor to Roberts. 

 

Specifically, he pressed Fox on the “cognitive dissonance” he says exists since the State Defender’s Office revised their hiring policies in direct response to the representatives’ letter. With the changes, job candidates are subject to an investigation into any conflict of interest prior to hiring. Deaton objects that a policy has been revised in response to the Representatives’ objections, under which Spears could not have been hired, and yet he remains employed.

 

Fox confirmed the State Defender’s Office represented Collings in appeals while Spears was employed by the agency, but said she did not become aware of that conflict of interest until the time of Collings’ clemency petition.

 

Fox, who was not Director when Spears was originally hired in 2016, but was in that position when he was hired again in 2020, defended the employment decision. She answered that the prosecutors, courts, and ultimately the governor, who denied the clemency appeals of Christopher Collings, refute the notion that Spears was responsible for anything more than leaving the girl alone while he went out drinking and lying to law enforcement.

 

“At a minimum, his actions led to the rape and murder of this girl. I don’t think anyone questions that,” Deaton responded.

 

During his inquiries, Roberts said, “The man’s, [Spears’], conduct was despicable by any standard, and in return for which, he now has a job. He would not be working for the Public Defender had he not had a previous relationship. He would not have a previous relationship had he not done what he did.  You can’t decouple that sequence of events. He’s got a job today because of what he did.  He’s got a paycheck, he’s got benefits, and he’s got a future, which Rowan Ford does not because she’s dead, and the idea that he is being paid for at public expense; tax dollars paid for by Rowan Ford’s mother, Rowan Ford’s extended family, Rowan Ford’s classmates, Rowan Ford’s teachers, and the police officers who had to investigate that horrible crime are all paying David Spears’ salary. Does that not offend your conscience?”

 

Throughout the inquiry, Fox defended Spears’ continued employment.

 

“We as an agency, and I think that Missouri as a state, believe that people with criminal convictions should be able to be employed, even by the state,” she said, later stating that Spears has performed well in his job. 

 

Roberts said the group of representatives have been treated as a “nuisance,” and have not been satisfied that the State Defender’s Office has sought to terminate Spears by any legal means, as the letter requested.

 

“I’m angry about this for a couple of reasons,” Roberts said. “When you and I spoke, you explained to me that David Spears is doing a good job, and I’ve heard people say, ‘Well yeah but he’s paid his debt to society, and yeah we want to rehabilitate him.’ Director, I just plain don’t care. I don’t care about the reputation of the Public Defenders. I don’t care that he’s doing a good job. He has not, and will never, pay his debt to Rowan Ford.”

 

“I am angry enough that I am going to ask the chair to consider an amendment during markup.  I know you have [new funding requests] for some additional people. If this is going to be your hiring practices, then I would suggest that we deny that until such time as your policies allow the Commission to weigh in on these decisions and they have the majority vote,” Roberts said.

 

Other members of the committee agreed, notably Rep. Raychel Proudie, who walked out of hearing after expressing her disgust at Fox’s responses and Spears’ continued employment. She refused to hear Fox’s budget presentation at all.

 

“If that man is still employed, if I’m elected to something else [in the General Assembly], it will be a ‘no’ on this budget for the entirety of time that the Good Lord sees for me to serve in the legislature, and I mean it. So, if you don’t think it damaged your reputation, it absolutely did. I can’t believe that that was the response that you… I would have rather you sat there and said nothing…As a member of the committee tasked with giving you the money to provide Missourians with Constitutional rights, I’m not going to be culpable of it,” Proudie said.

 

“Forty thousand dollars ain’t enough to go to hell over,” Proudie said before leaving the room. 

 

Fox asked for, and was granted, a postponement for her presentation. 

 

“I don’t want you to just say, ‘No, I won’t consider your budget.’  That’s not fair,” Fox objected.  “I know you’re angry and I appreciate why you’re angry, and I just want you to think about the fact we experience this anger 80,000 times a year in our jobs, and we have people who do this really hard work, and they deserve your attention.  They deserve for you to hear who we are – all of us, not just one person – who we are and what we do, and why it’s so important.”

 

Both Roberts and Deaton agreed it would be best to try the presentation again another time, but made their expectations clear.

 

“If we’re at the same place, say it’s in two weeks, I think we’re probably going to be right back where we are,” Deaton said.