St. Louis (AP)  Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley has appointed a St. Louis attorney to investigate claims that Hawley’s predecessor withheld evidence in a lawsuit over the fatal shooting of a black man by a white police officer.

Hawley, a Republican, on Thursday appointed Hal Goldsmith to investigate. The family of Anthony Lamar Smith has alleged in a letter to Hawley’s office that former Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat, and that the city of St. Louis withheld evidence in a civil suit over Smith’s death at the hands of officer Jason Stockley in 2011.

Phone and email messages seeking comment from Koster through Centene Corp., where he now works, were not immediately returned.
A judge ruled in mid-September that Stockley was not guilty of first-degree murder, setting off several protests in and around St. Louis. Stockley left the department in 2013.