JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon won’t be returning to the courtroom anytime soon.

A Cole County Circuit Court judge ruled Thursday that the state's top public defender doesn’t have the authority to appoint the governor, or any private counsel, to argue a case.

At issue was a decision earlier this month from Michael Barrett, the state’s lead public defender, to order Nixon to represent an indigent defendant, citing a provision of state law allowing him to delegate such a job to “any member of the state bar in Missouri” in extraordinary circumstances.

Fed up with an underfunded public defender system, he picked the most high-profile lawyer in Missouri: Nixon, a former Missouri attorney general who has had an active law license since 1981, and the person Barrett said is most responsible for the cuts to his department’s budget.

On Thursday, the court denied a motion to withdraw the public defender assigned to the case and replace him with Nixon, on the grounds that only the courts have the power to appoint lawyers.