St. Louis public defender resigns over racist joke

ST. LOUIS -- A former Cape Girardeau public defender has resigned in the fallout from a racist joke he told.

Kent Hall, the head of the public defender's office in St. Louis, quit Thursday. Others in his office said Hall's joke caused credibility problems, especially considering that more than nine out of 10 of their clients are black.

In a brief statement released Thursday, J. Marty Robinson, director of the state's public defenders, said his office "fully investigated the matter and recognizes that one of our managers made a statement that was appalling and inexcusable."

There was no listing for Hall in the St. Louis phone book or on Internet search engines.

Hall moved to St. Louis at the beginning of the year after leaving the equivalent job in Springfield, Mo. He earned about $65,000 a year there. Before that, he was the district defender at Cape Girardeau. His latest salary figure was not immediately available.

Lawyers in the St. Louis public defender's office told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch they felt what Hall did could not be tolerated. Two lawyers, talking on the condition they not be identified in print, gave this account:

On March 27, Hall drove four lawyers, including a fair-skinned black, to a restaurant. Along the way, he said, "I heard a great racist joke. You all don't mind if I tell it."

Then he did.

Everyone was shocked and fell silent. After lunch, the black member of the group reported the incident to Ellen Blau, deputy director of the trial division.

A few hours later, the insiders said, Hall apologized to the woman who complained and said he had never before told a racist joke.

Hall also told the woman that he had "questioned whether coming to the city was the right decision."

On March 28, Blau met with 25 of the office's 32 employees to warn that racial jokes would not be tolerated, and Hall offered the group an apology. Colleagues who spoke to the newspaper said they felt they could no longer work for Hall.

"It was so insulting on so many different levels that I didn't know how I felt about him being my immediate supervisor," one public defender said. "And when you consider that more than 90 percent of our clients are African-American, it's just so much worse."