Missouri Supreme Court
As we celebrate Veterans Day this month, I reflect on the many veterans who have touched my life. The first veteran I recall hearing about was my mother’s younger brother. I never had a chance to meet my Uncle David – he was about 18 years old when he died, during World War II, when…
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From time to time, friends and acquaintances ask me if they can come watch the proceedings of the Supreme Court of Missouri in Jefferson City. I reply, “Of course. We love having people visit the court and see us in action.” I am always surprised when I hear people say they think they need a…
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Missourians will have the opportunity to vote to enshrine abortion in the state constitution this November, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. In a decision published less than three hours before the constitutional deadline to remove a question from the ballot, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s ruling that recommended the measure be stripped…
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Perhaps you are like me in noticing all the “back to school” sales as students from elementary school through college and graduate school prepare for their return to the classroom soon. Did you know Missouri’s judges also are gearing up to go back to school? All Missouri judges (and lawyers too) are required to have…
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A state Senate district map drawn by a judicial commission meets state and federal constitutional requirements and will not be changed, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. In a 5-2 decision handed down just two weeks after hearing oral arguments, the court upheld a trial court opinion that rejected the challenge to districts that split Buchanan County on the western…
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Missouri’s highest court this week heard arguments over the constitutionality of a two-year-old state law terminating parental rights following a conviction for certain crimes against children. The case, heard Wednesday by the state Supreme Court, involves a Jefferson County father whose parental rights were terminated after he pled guilty to child molestation and sexual misconduct in…
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The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the convictions of two single mothers who were charged with violating the state’s compulsory attendance law after their children missed school without a documented illness. Oral arguments in May focused on what “regular attendance” means and whether the state law was too vague. Ellen Flottman, a public defender representing…
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The “machinery of death” is back to work in Missouri as the Missouri Supreme Court has issued an execution date of May 3 for Carman Deck. James and Zelma Long were fatally shot during a robbery in their home in Desoto in 1997. Deck and his sister went to the Long home with the intent to…
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As a fight over who can regulate industrial hog and cattle operations awaits action by the Missouri Supreme Court, counties that sought more stringent protections against them wait in limbo. The Missouri Supreme Court is expected to hear an appeal by county commissioners who sought to regulate concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, after a Cole…
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A pair of Missouri counties is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn a 2019 law that stripped them of their ability to set their own rules for concentrated animal feeding operations. Under the law, county commissioners are prohibited from setting policies that are “inconsistent with or more stringent than” state rules for CAFOs. The law nullified…
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The Missouri Supreme Court ruled last month that the state must expand Medicaid as voters approved in 2020. Now it’s just a question of when. On Friday, attorneys representing plaintiffs who would have qualified for coverage urged Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem to effectuate what the state’s highest court ordered and prohibit the…
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