When it comes to standing up for his client, 50度灰视频 lawyer Jeffrey Ernst gets straight to the point.
On Monday, Ernst filed a motion seeking to disqualify St. Francois County Prosecuting Attorney Jerrod Mahurin from further prosecution of a drug case against Richard Clark, 59, of Farmington.
鈥淢ahurin is out of control,鈥 Ernst writes. 鈥淚n his quest to make Clark spend the rest of his life in jail based on a failed trafficking case, Mahurin trampled on his due process rights and willfully defied this Court鈥檚 order to produce evidence. He also ignored the boundaries of professional conduct by a prosecutor.鈥
Ernst鈥檚 motion accuses Mahurin of 鈥減rosecutorial misconduct鈥 and seeks to replace him with a special prosecutor. Mahurin, a Democrat who faces Republican Melissa Gilliam in Tuesday鈥檚 election, hasn鈥檛 responded in court to the motion. In an interview with the Post-Dispatch, Mahurin said Ernst is trying to have him removed from the case because Ernst doesn鈥檛 like the plea offers he鈥檚 made to Ernst鈥檚 client.
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鈥淭he attorneys in that case tried to take up that motion once already, and it was not successful,鈥 Mahurin said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no standing or grounds for that to happen.鈥
Clark, who has previous drug offenses on his record, was arrested Aug. 26, 2015. He was jailed overnight and eventually charged with 鈥渢rafficking and possession of drug paraphernalia,鈥 both felonies.
Like many defendants in St. Francois County, where bails are often high and even people not accused of violent offenses are sometimes detained for months before trial, Clark ended up spending 495 days in county jail awaiting a trial that still hasn鈥檛 come.
At question, Ernst writes in his motion, is whether Clark was actually 鈥渁rrested鈥 on the day he was put in jail. At a hearing in June held in part to answer that question, and to see if an incriminating statement could be used against Clark at trial, Mahurin argued that Clark was not arrested. The officer who brought Clark to the jail agreed with the prosecutor.
鈥淗e was not taken into custody,鈥 Farmington police Officer Kelvin Clemons testified at that hearing. Fellow Officer Neil Jannin offered similar testimony, according to court records. 鈥淗e did not go to jail,鈥 Clemons testified. 鈥淗e was left at the house.鈥
Records Ernst obtained later from the St. Francois County Sheriff鈥檚 Department paint an entirely different picture. They show Clark arrested, fingerprinted and booked into the jail.
Ernst writes in his brief that 鈥渄efense counsel obtained the Sheriff鈥檚 Department 鈥楧ays Served Report,鈥 which put the lie to Officers Clemons鈥 and Jannin鈥檚 testimony by showing that Clark was arrested on Aug. 26, 2015.鈥
Now having evidence that the police officers鈥 testimony was inaccurate, Ernst called and emailed Mahurin. He sought more documents.
鈥淲hen asked what happened,鈥 Ernst writes, 鈥淢ahurin pled ignorance and threw Officers Clemons and Jannin under the bus, saying 鈥業 was under the belief based on my officers鈥 testimony that (the arrest records) didn鈥檛 exist. Because they had testified and told me multiple times.鈥欌
The issue of whether Clark was in custody when police questioned him is significant. If he was in custody and hadn鈥檛 been read his Miranda rights, any statements he made would likely be inadmissible, making it harder for Mahurin to make the case.
Mahurin dropped the more serious trafficking charge in September, after trying to use it as 鈥渓everage鈥 against Clark to obtain a plea deal in the possession case, Ernst wrote.
鈥淢ahurin never had any intention of continuing on with the trafficking case, but nevertheless took one last shot at squeezing Clark with it,鈥 his motion argues. 鈥淢ahurin is compromised 鈥 The fact that he attempted to leverage a defective case 鈥 moments before he voluntarily dismissed it because of insurmountable evidentiary problems 鈥 to secure a plea deal in a different case smacks of impropriety.鈥
Ernst was himself a prosecutor for 11 years. Like others who have complained of the lack of justice in St. Francois County, whether related to high bails or court costs or Mahurin鈥檚 alleged violation of court rules, such as failing to hand over arrest and jail records even after being directed to by a judge, he鈥檚 baffled by the prosecutor鈥檚 conduct in this case.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not like I was asking him to climb Mount Everest to get the documents,鈥 Ernst told me in an interview. 鈥淭his is simple stuff. When a person goes to jail there are all sorts of documents that go with it. I鈥檝e never seen anything like this before.鈥
Jailed for being poor is Missouri epidemic: A series of columns from Tony Messenger
Tony Messenger has written about Missouri cases where people were charged for their time in jail or on probation, then owe more money than their fines or court costs.聽
The Pulitzer Prize board considered these columns when it decided to award the prize for commentary to metro columnist Tony Messenger.聽
In a twist of irony, one judge no longer calls them 鈥減ayment review hearings.鈥 Instead, he鈥檚 even more direct. Now they are called 鈥渄ebt colle…
鈥淭he jail is emptying out. People that do come in are able to bond out quickly. None of the girls here are being held for financial reasons. T…
In a case of civil contempt 鈥 such as when a judge jails a reporter for not revealing a source, or an attorney for failing to follow an order …
Even with the state鈥檚 top court making progress in eradicating the practice of putting people in jail because they can鈥檛 afford to be in jail,…
鈥淭here are a pile of cases where people owe us money,鈥 the judge told the defendant, a painter, who said he was having a hard time finding wor…
No longer, the court said in one voice, can judges in Missouri threaten indigent defendants with jail time for their inability to be able to a…
Disparate treatment of people charged with crimes offers a glimpse into a fundamental problem in the application of criminal justice in Missou…
Weiss wants the Legislature to make it illegal for counties to charge defendants for their time behind bars.
鈥淗ow can they cancel a court date then issue a warrant without even telling you the new court date?鈥 Sharp wonders.
His bill would stop the practice in Missouri of state police agencies avoiding state jurisdiction by seeking asset forfeiture under guise of f…
"He sat in jail because he was poor," public defender Matthew Mueller聽said of his client.
The two defendants are Exhibits A and B of why Missouri has become the front line in a national war on poverty and the courts.
She knows what she did was wrong. She knows she should have been punished.
鈥淚t's been a hard road,鈥 she told me recently. 鈥淩eally hard.鈥
For decades, Missouri鈥檚 corrections budget has been rising. So has its prison population, with a 鈥渢ough on crime鈥 philosophy filling prisons w…
鈥淲e鈥檙e hamstringing the very people who we want to go out and get a job,鈥 Lummus says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 self-defeating.鈥
In his regular appearance on the McGraw Milhaven show on KTRS radio, Metro columnist Tony Messenger discusses his ongoing debtors' prison series.
He did his time. Then he got the bill: $3,150 for his stay behind bars.
A year-end update on some of the cases Tony Messenger wrote about during 2018.
The primary difference between the poor people who have been 鈥渢errorized鈥 in Edmundson or Jennings or Ferguson, compared with those in Salem a…
The Court of Appeals in the Western District of Missouri determined that the practice of using the courts to try to collect board bills is ill…
Some counties in Missouri don't charge board bills. Those include聽the most urban counties in the state: both the city and county of 50度灰视频,…
I did my time and then some. This is how they get people. They keep them on probation and then if they don't pay their board bill they violate…
By 2009, Rapp was behind in her payments and the court revoked her probation. She did a couple of days in jail and her cash bond of $400 was a…
Every week in Missouri, a judge somewhere holds a crowded docket to collect room and board from people who were recently in jail. The judges c…
鈥淚 don鈥檛 see why he has to keep going to court every month,鈥 she says. Sharon uses her Social Security income to try to keep him out of jail. …
Because Precious Jones was late to jail, prosecutor and judge seek to add to her sentence.
The Missouri Supreme Court and Missouri Legislature should revisit their 2015 and 2016 efforts to reform courts. More work is necessary.
Other than now being required to meet federal standards for that drug testing, private probation companies face nearly no oversight in Missour…
鈥淚 messed up on probation,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t was my fault.鈥 Still, he doesn鈥檛 think it makes sense that he鈥檚 still hauled to court once a month wi…
Murr owed Dent County about $4,000 for her 鈥渂oard bill鈥 for the 95 days she had been jailed.
The domestic violence victim, Gaddis says, wouldn鈥檛 make a report to police because she feared going to jail herself and losing her child.聽
鈥淭hey make you jump through hoops,鈥 Bote says, 鈥渁nd then they keep moving the hoops higher.鈥
William Everts stole from a church. Almost immediately, he knew it was a bad idea.
Bergen has the sort of back story that would inspire one of the movies or television episodes based in the Ozarks that seem to be all the rage…
Clark ended up spending 495 days in county jail awaiting a trial that still hasn鈥檛 come.
Pritchett first called me last year, after I wrote about a St. Francois County woman who was sent to prison for failing to pay court costs. He…
Rob Hopple had been in jail since May after falling behind on payments on an ankle bracelet. Court dates kept coming and going, with the prose…
The bills are that high because the two criminal defendants couldn鈥檛 afford to pay for an initial sentence behind bars for relatively minor of…
鈥淭he practical reality is that people are being arrested for being poor,鈥 Mueller says. 鈥淎nd there鈥檚 nothing they can do about it. They just s…
At least twice in recent years, the Missouri Supreme Court has overturned harsh sentences issued by a judge after she sent people to prison so…
Branson, in early 2018, was in Desloge, Mo., now, living with her 15-year-old son, checking in with her parole officer, hoping never to go bac…
Officially, Victoria Branson鈥檚 probation was revoked because she never paid the state the past due support and the court costs, which rang up …