Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys Archives

Prosecutors’ association urges digital warrants in DWI cases

July 7, 2014 By Mike Lear

A policy that seeks to ensure evidence is obtained from suspected drunk drivers has been endorsed by the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.

The Association has issued the first of its recommended best practices to the state’s prosecuting attorneys, and one of those is that prosecutors develop a “no refusal” policy for DWI cases, and work with law enforcement to develop standard procedures.

People pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving in Missouri have the right to refuse a breath test. An officer can request a warrant for a blood sample from a suspect, but paper warrants can require officers to seek approval from the prosecutor and then physically visit a judge to secure the warrant. The time involved means such warrants are often not sought.

Under a “no refusal” policy, law enforcement can seek a digital search warrant that can be processed and authorized by the court electronically. Officers can have a warrant in minutes.

Executive Director Jason Lamb urges all prosecutors to institute such a policy.

“Aggressive and consistent DWI investigation and prosecution really amounts to homicide prevention,” says Lamb.

Lamb says such policies give law enforcement another tool to be persistent in their pursuit of DWI investigations.

“In a burglary case there’s evidence, usually, of some time of stolen property or burglar’s tools and we wouldn’t hesitate to seek a search warrant in that case. In a murder case there might be evidence of a weapon and we wouldn’t hesitate to seek a warrant in that case. In a rape case there might be evidence of DNA and we wouldn’t hesitate to seek a search warrant in that case,” says Lamb. “In DWI cases the best evidence is of course inside the defendant’s body – the blood alcohol content. It’s simply a matter of seeking a search warrant to obtain that evidence, to have it available for trial in every single DWI case.”

Mothers Against Drunk Driving backs the institution of “no refusal” policies. Director of Court Monitoring Bud Balke says it would allow officers to move more quickly to secure evidence.

“With the refusal policy in place we think it’s a wonderful system. We believe that it does enhance what the law enforcement’s able to do. It actually makes it easier for prosecutors to actually prosecute these types of cases,” Balke says. “It makes it easier on judges, even, when they are able to sign those electronic warrants … it’s a positive all the way around I think for everyone involved except for the offender.”

Miller County in June became the latest county in the state to adopt such a policy. Lamb says 10 to 15 counties in the state now have it in place.

Audit stirs debate over public defender caseload

October 11, 2012 By Mike Lear

The Missouri State Auditor has released an audit of the State Public Defender System that raises questions about how caseloads are calculated. The heads of the associations for the state’s prosecutors and public defenders debate what that means for the idea that there is a caseload crisis.

In a news release, the Auditor says the system is “unable to accurately determine the resources needed to manage caseloads.”

The audit finds the system determines needed attorney hours by converting a national standard from 1973 with the assumption of each attorney working 2,080 hours per year, but calculates the number available attorney hours based on each attorney working an average of 1,536 hours per year.

The Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys says the audit “shatters” the claim that there is a growing crisis of caseload size for the state’s public defenders.

President Eric Zahnd says the audit “reveals that that claim is really simply a myth that has been manufactured by misleading caseload statistics.”

Public Defender System Director Cat Kelly says regardless of how caseloads are calculated, there is no question that there is a caseload issue.

“The question is not, ‘Do we have a problem,’ it’s, ‘Where exactly, precisely should the line be drawn for us to say we can take this many and no more,'” she says “That’s what the debate is over, is where the line is drawn. I would contend that we are so far under that you could draw the line almost anywhere and we would be better off than where we are now.”

Kelly says the audit findings that the caseload protocol need to be improved are not new and says her office is already working to develop a new system not based on national caseload standards. She says an expert that worked with her office, Norman Lefstein, a law professor and dean emeritus at Indiana University, says an upated protocol could reveal a caseload problem that is greater than thought now.

“In his opinion, the protocol that we’re using now … its deficiency is that it has us taking on too many cases, not too few,” Kelly says.

Zahnd says the audit shows public defenders have no basis to defend turning away new clients. Kelly says that isn’t going to happen any time soon, “because the number of cases they have isn’t changing. The caseload is not changing … this is an argument over what is the best measurement of the problem. That doesn’t change the fact that the problem exists.”

Read the audit summary or the full report (pdf).

MAPA president on proposed criminal code overhaul

October 2, 2012 By Mike Lear

The Joint Interim Committee on the Missouri Criminal Code meets again today. The 1,034 page proposal that is its starting point has the backing of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.

The Association’s new president, Eric Zahnd, says over time the state’s criminal code naturally develops discrepancies and contradictions that need to be fixed. “Legislators, to their credit, see problems and work to fix those problems, which means that new laws are created every single legislative session. At some point we need to again bring some uniformity to all of those changes that have been made, in this case over more than 30 years, to bring the code back into some sense of uniformity.”

Zahnd says the overhaul will impact other issues, such as prison overcrowding and the caseload for public defenders. “One of the things that we’ve heard, in fact, from the special master who the Missouri Supreme Court appointed to look at the public defender situation, he specifically mentioned the complexity of the criminal code as one of the issues that affects the public defender situation and again, frankly, the entire criminal justice system.”

The hearing today will focus in part on drug law, which the state legislature already made one change to regarding the discrepancy between penalties for powder and crack cocaine. Zahnd says the proposal also, “takes the punishment for some possession offenses and actually decreases the punishment for those but at the same time, for some drug dealing offenses, actually increases punishment for those.”

Another portion of the proposal would also create a new class of felony and a new class of misdemeanor.