Joplin Globe opposes efforts to have Rowan Ford's stepfather fired

For some reason, the Joplin Globe editorial board felt the need to weigh in on the controversy surrounding the revelation that murder victim Rowan Ford's stepfather David Spears is receiving more than $40,000 a year in taxpayer money as an employee of the Missouri Public Defender's Office.

Par for the course for the Globe, it came down on the wrong side, heavily criticizing Rep. Lane Roberts, R-Joplin and other legislators for threatening to defund the Public Defender's office unless David Spears is fired.

"Lawmakers urging that Spears be fired- though misguided- is fine; these threats are not," the Globe said in an editorial that ran on today's opinion page.

The editorial reeks of the kind of "we're smarter and we know better than you," thought process that the newspaper has inflicted on us for the past several years.

The court found him guilty, and Spears' sentence has been served. He has completed his parole. Such extrajudicial action by the Legislature to target an individual, piling on additional punishment through legislative action is flatly unconstitutional. The dangerous tendency of lawmakers to step into the arena of the courts is the reason the Founding Fathers banned bills of attainder in the Constitution.

The editorial then says the threat to "act against one person by defunding an agency that fulfills a constitutional role in our government is ill-considered and irresponsible. These legislators would be hurting all Missouri residents, acting against our best interests to go after one man."

Let's get something straight- the legislature is not going to defund the public defender's office, but it has every right to threaten to do so.

In this case, the threat is more of a message to the Public Defender's Office that it's not going to be business as usual.

The Globe editorial tried to play the role of the reasonable, rational voice that keeps the eye on common sense even as Lane Roberts and many of those who are reading this column, feel our money should not be paying David Spears' salary and benefits.

Part of the problem here may be the lurid nature of the crime. It is easy to condemn and attack anyone even tangentially involved in a horrific attack and murder of a child. But the law has to be applied fairly even in the most vile circumstance, or it stops being law.

As it often does, the Globe is overlooking some things that make this story a bit different than the one the newspaper is telling.

-When David Spears was hired, he had not completed his probation.

-As the editorial notes, the crime was lurid, but what it fails to mention is that prosecutors had the choice of prosecuting both men and risking the chance of losing both cases and receiving no justice for Rowan or making the deal with Spears. In the court filings of Chris Collings, the man who was executed for Rowan's murder, Spears was portrayed as being involved in Rowan's death and in the filings just before Collings was executed, his lawyers pointedly addressed the possibility that Spears was the guilty one. It should be noted that the lawyers who were representing Collings were from the Missouri Public Defender's Office. In other words, Spears' bosses were claiming he could be a murderer.

-The Globe neglected to tell the whole story. In this case, and I could be wrong, it appears that the editorial was based solely on the Missouri Independent's coverage of the House Budget Committee hearing. The editorial notes that Lane Roberts said he didn't care whether Spears was rehabilitated or whether he was doing a good job. "He has not, and will never, pay his debt to Rowan Ford."

That quote was mentioned in the Missouri Independent article.

Perhaps the Globe's approach might have been better if the editorial writers had actually watched the entire committee hearing. Roberts' anger wasn't just about David Spears, but about the cavalier attitude Mary Fox, the director of the Public Defender's Office took. She took issue with Roberts' contention that Spears was the one who took authorities to where Rowan's body had been dumped.

He did.

During the entire hearing, Fox displayed an attitude that she knew so much more than the people who were questioning her. In a past life, she may have been a Globe editorial writer.

I can't take issue with the idea that a state agency should lead the way in giving a second chance to those who have paid their debt to society. In this case, David Spears was hired before he paid his debt, received his opportunity only because the office had represented him in this case and continued to be employed even as his employers were filing legal documents saying he might be a murderer.

I have no problems with David Spears landing a job, even a high paying job. But there has to be something wrong with his salary and benefits being paid for by Rowan's family, her teachers, her classmates and the people of Stella who loved her.