The Absurdity of Concurrent Jurisdiction in Missouri.

By Robert Sauls

Notwithstanding the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic, we were called back into the legislature not to address jobs, healthcare, loans for small businesses, or anything  directly related to the pandemic, we were called back to address crime.  Let me be clear, crime is important, and we should address it, but the legislation that we passed does almost nothing to stop crime. There were some provisions that will help prosecutors after the fact, e.g. the witness protection fund and forfeiture by wrongdoing, but the entire purpose of this special election was to score cheap political points in an election year.  

For those who do not know what concurrent jurisdiction is, as it pertains to this piece of legislation, it affords the attorney general the opportunity to prosecute a case over which he or she does not currently have jurisdiction.  It infringes upon local control.  Prosecutors are elected at the local level and the state should not be allowed to take control of those cases. 

Cases can be charged solely based upon probable cause, but you would never want to charge a case on just probable cause.  The reason being that prosecutors have an ethical duty to prove their cases beyond a reasonable doubt.  A prosecutor may believe in his or her gut that a defendant committed an offense, but he or she is ethically bound to not charge the case until there is enough evidence.  Additionally, prosecutors cannot charge a case until they receive the evidence from law enforcement.  That is an important piece to this puzzle.  On August 10, 2020, Governor Mike Parson stated that there were 161 homicides in the city of St. Louis and only 33 of them had been charged.  What he failed to mention, was that approximately only 44 homicide cases had been submitted to the prosecutor, which means that there were roughly 117 unsolved murders in the city of St. Louis that the prosecutor could not charge even if she wanted to charge them.  A prosecutor must have the evidence to charge a case, and Kim Gardner did not have the evidence in at approximately 117 out of the 161 cases in 2020. 

With regard to the cases that she supposedly could have charged and did not charge, one is too many if the evidence is there.  That is however an important “if.”  As I previously mentioned prosecutors have an ethical obligation not to convict if they do not have the evidence or do not believe in the guilt of the suspect.  Before filing a case, a prosecutor must make sure that he or she has the evidence to convict and believes that the suspect is in fact responsible for the offense.  Criminal cases are taxing for everyone involved and it would be awful to get the victim’s mother’s hopes up only to lose at trial because you do not have the evidence and never give her that closure. 

That is not to say that the cases that she supposedly could have charged should not have been charged.  I have not seen the evidence and do not know what she was given in order to prove the case.  What I do know is that there is no statute of limitation on murder, and that just because it is not charged now, does not mean that it cannot and will not be charged later.  It is certainly possible that she simply could have requested more evidence.  Something along the lines of “I cannot charge this now but will charge this after the DNA comes back” assuming it points to the suspect.