Senator calls for modernizing court structure; evaluates death penalty

By Marc Powers

Nevada Daily Mail

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- During debate on the state court system's budget last week, the Senate judiciary chairman said a major restructuring of Missouri's system to ensure judicial resources are allocated more effectively is long overdue.

State Sen. Matt Bartle, R-Lee's Summit, said the boundaries of Missouri's 45 judicial circuits and the number of judges assigned to each need to be revised to reflect shifts in population and caseloads.

"We have judges in some places in our state that have no jury trials in an entire year -- none," Bartle said. "The reason is our court system and judicial resources are based on a 1940s demographic model. The constitutional requirement that each of Missouri's 114 counties have at least one judge is antiquated," Bartle said, and leads to situations were judges in some sparsely populated rural areas have little to do.

Eliminating the requirement would require a voter-approved constitutional amendment.

Bartle also said circuits in St. Louis and St. Louis County have too many judges because of population declines while circuits that have experienced residential growth have too few.

While conceding any move to consolidate judgeships or move them to other circuits would prove difficult and unpopular, Bartle said lawmakers need to demonstrate the political will to fix the gross inequities in the system.

"It is going to take the people's representatives in certain areas to look at the statistics and admit the obvious instead of just protecting their own turf," Bartle said.

No major structural changes in the judiciary are being considered in the state budget.

Carrying out death penalty

sentences

Missouri has executed two inmates since Gov. Matt Blunt took office, and both times he allowed the sentences to be carried out after the Board of Probation and Parole recommended clemency.

On a 5-2 vote, the board urged Blunt to reduce Donald Jones' sentence to life in prison without parole for the 1993 murder of his grandmother.

The victim's family, which is also Jones' family, had asked the governor to spare his life. Jones was executed by injection just after midnight Wednesday.

Blunt said Tuesday he carefully considered the family's wishes and the boards recommendation but ultimately decided the death penalty was warranted in this instance.

"I believe the execution needs to go forward in the best interests of the justice system," Blunt said.

Blunt previously rejected the board's recommendation of clemency for Stanley L. Hall, who murdered a woman at a St. Louis County shopping mall in 1994. Hall was put to death on March 16.

Blunt said the board provides thoughtful recommendations, and he doesn't question its motives. In these two cases, however, he felt it appropriate to reject its findings.

"We have the death penalty because we believe as a society, a state and a people that some crimes are so horrific that the only appropriate punishment is the death penalty," Blunt said.

Legislature's job

If lawmakers restore too many of the optional Medicaid services he proposed eliminating, Blunt said last week he would consider using his line-item veto to remove them from the state budget.

However, state Sen. Chuck Gross, R-St. Charles, said the Senate should stand its ground and fund programs it thinks are important.

"Governors don't write budgets -- we do. That's our job," said Gross, the Senate appropriations chairman. "There might be certain areas were we want to push a bit."

Although Blunt said he was amenable to restoring some services, such as those that pay for wheelchairs and oxygen for Medicaid recipients, he was unsure about others that may appear.

The legislature's deadline for sending Blunt a completed state budget is Friday.