Price address recognizes ‘economic realities’ 
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, members of the General Assembly: It is my honor to deliver this 37th State of the Judiciary Address.
I am completing my 17th year as a judge of the Missouri Supreme Court. In that time I have seen governors come and go, speakers of the House, lieutenant governors, president pro tems of [...]
Thrust of State of Judiciary was all business
Missouri’s chief justice cited evolutionary theory, the Bible, John Updike and his uncle the Iowa farmer to set the tone for his State of the Judiciary speech.
But when he really wanted to make a point, Chief Justice William Ray Price Jr. - a conservative jurist addressing a Republican-led Legislature - used the language of business.
Price, [...]
Chief Justice Price urges funding for drug, DWI courts
Missouri’s chief justice said the state could save millions of dollars by changing the way it handles drunken drivers and other nonviolent offenders.
Court weighs research rules on jurors’ pasts
The Missouri Supreme Court appears poised to begin requiring attorneys to run Case.net searches on their potential jurors before the end of trial. But the exact shape of such a rule - and whether it would apply to cases already tried - remains a quandary.
At a hearing last week in Jefferson City, the high court [...]
Mo. Supreme Court debates right to self-defense ‘tools’
A Jackson County man facing the death penalty told the Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday that he should have been allowed to represent himself.
At issue was whether Richard D. Davis’ rights were overridden when a circuit judge refused to provide him with such trial tools as depositions and transcripts. Wednesday’s arguments became a wide-ranging discussion [...]
Insurance: Business Pursuits Exclusion - Ambiguity - Post-Judgment Interest
Burns v. Farmers Alliance Mutual Insurance Company of Kansas (MLW No. 60136/Case No. SC90041 - 15 pages)
(1)Where a plaintiff sought to recover a $2 million personal injury judgment from the personal injury defendant’s insurer, the trial court properly found that a policy exclusion for injuries arising out of business pursuits did not apply to bar [...]
Criminal Law: Confinement - Felony Failure To Return - Sufficiency Of Evidence
State v. Moore (MLW No. 60135/Case No. SC90125 - 13 pages)
Where a defendant was charged with felony failure to return to confinement when he returned six days late to jail after he was released temporarily by his sentencing judge, opinion testimony by the sentencing judge was not prejudicial, and the defendant’s conviction is affirmed because [...]
Criminal Law: Death Penalty - Proportionality Review -‘Similar Cases’
State v. Deck (MLW No. 60138/Case No. SC89830 - 64 pages)
(1)Where a defendant in a death penalty case argued that he was entitled to life in prison under a statute requiring mandatory re-sentencing to a life term when the death penalty is unconstitutionally imposed, the trial court errors in the defendant’s earlier trial involved the [...]
Supreme Court affirms $2M verdict, reduces interest
The Missouri Supreme Court found that an insurance company was liable for its $1 million policy limits after finding the policy’s business exclusion did not apply in the case.
The court rejected Farmers Alliance Mutual Insurance Co.’s arguments that the court should interpret the ambiguity in the policy by engaging in a fact-based analysis of each [...]
Proportionality argued in capital murder cases
The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed Carman Deck’s [left] death sentences Tuesday in a unanimous decision, but the case prompted extensive debate among judges on the legal concept of proportionality.