Missouri Lawyers Media Missouri legal news and public notices

Where appellants challenged a judgment against them on their adverse-possession claim to 314 acres of land, the judgment is affirmed because the trial court did not err in finding that they failed to present substantial evidence to conclude that their ...

Tagged with: Adverse Possession Hostile Real Property Sufficiency Of Evidence

Where a plaintiff in an unlawful-detainer action voluntarily dismissed the action without prejudice and without an order of the court, the appeal is dismissed because there was no final judgment from which to appeal. Appeal is dismissed. Bell Management, Inc. ...

Tagged with: civil practice Unlawful Detainer voluntary dismissal

Defendant pleaded guilty to stealing a front-end loader worth at least $25,000 and received a 10-year sentence. The Supreme Court subsequently decided that the stealing statute did not allow the offense to be enhanced to a felony. The trial court ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law Felony Enhancement stealing

Defendant entered an Alford plea to two felony charges and was placed on probation that was subsequently revoked for three criminal violations. Defendant escaped his transport to incarceration but was recaptured several days later. Defendant’s motion for post-conviction relief was ...

Where a claimant challenged the denial of benefits from the Second Injury Fund, arguing that exhibits showing that he was convicted of Social Security fraud were improperly admitted, the judgment is affirmed because the challenged exhibits were cumulative to the ...

Tagged with: Prior Convictions SIF Workers’ Compensation

Where a defendant, who was convicted of the attempted enticement of a child, argued that the trial court erred in denying his request to submit a jury instruction that required the jury to find that he knew the victim was ...

Tagged with: Attempted Enticement of Child Criminal Law jury instructions Knowledge of Age

Defendant was charged with statutory sodomy. Following several hours of deliberation, the jury reported that it was split 11-1 and could not come to a unanimous verdict. The trial court granted the state’s request to provide the “hammer instruction” to ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law Hammer Instruction Split Jury statutory sodomy

Where a defendant, who was required to register as a sex offender after he failed to report his Facebook accounts, claimed that his counsel was ineffective for failing to argue that the relevant Missouri statute was unconstitutional in light of ...

Tagged with: Criminal Law effectiveness of counsel Post-Conviction Relief sex offender registry

Father appealed from the termination of his parental rights to his daughter C.E.B. on the statutory grounds of neglect, after the trial court found father suffered from a mental condition and chemical dependency and had repeatedly failed to provide for ...

Tagged with: Domestic Relations Neglect Termination of Parental Rights Weight of Evidence

Defendant was found guilty of sexual abuse and felony attempted enticement of a child. At trial, the state offered two witnesses who testified that defendant had, years ago, offered them money to expose themselves to defendant. On appeal, defendant challenged ...

Tagged with: Admission of Prior Bad Acts Criminal Law Questioning of Family Member’s Prior Bad Acts sexual abuse

Movant, serving five concurrent prison terms for various sex crimes, moved for post-conviction relief alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel, who chose to make a unitary rather than offense-specific defense that all three victims were lying and failed to request ...

Tagged with: Categorically Unreasonable Strategic Decisions Criminal Law ineffective assistance of counsel Post-Conviction Relief