At the urging of a new Missouri Bar governor, the Missouri State Public Defender System may try to recoup some of the $70,000 the system raised to pay for a comprehensive study of its caseload problems. The governor, Marie Kenyon, ...

Tagged with: Cat Kelly Dwight Scroggins Missouri Bar Board of Governors prosecutor public defenders Skip Walther Spangenberg Group

A group of Missouri prosecutors urged bar officials to conduct a review of the state’s entire criminal justice system – one that doesn’t focus just on public defenders. In a press release sent Thursday, Buchanan County Prosecutor Dwight Scroggins said ...

Tagged with: Dwight Scroggins Keith Birkes prosecutors Skip Walther Spangenberg Group The Missouri Bar

Price says refusal could amount to ‘prosecutorial decision'

Karl Meyer, a Saint Louis University law student and intern with the St. Louis Public Defenders office, interviews a potential client to determine his indigency status last week. Interns help with this process to free up public defenders to work on their cases.

The burden of the public defenders' case load was the subject of a Missouri Supreme Court case heard Tuesday in Jefferson City.

Tagged with: Missouri State Public Defender System Spangenberg Group

Underfunded by the Legislature and rebuffed by the governor, public defenders take their caseload crisis to the last branch of government, the Missouri Supreme Court

On Tuesday, the Missouri State Public Defender system is prepared to tell the Missouri Supreme Court about the dangers of illusory lawyers.

Tagged with: Missouri State Public Defender System Spangenberg Group

Missouri’s public defenders likely will receive only $500,000 of the $2 million in federal recovery funds the Legislature allocated to the beleaguered system. Gov. Jay Nixon’s budget office released the $500,000 on Oct. 15. Is it possible the governor will ...

Tagged with: Missouri State Public Defender System Spangenberg Group

The latest independent study of Missouri’s public defender system reaffirmed its overloaded status and declared Missouri’s indigent defense options are “headed for disaster.” The report, released Friday morning, also suggested defenders are using stricter standards for indigent defense as a ...

Tagged with: public defenders Spangenberg Group

The latest independent study of Missouri’s public defender system reaffirmed its overloaded status and declared Missouri’s indigent defense options are “headed for disaster.” The report, released Friday morning, also highlighted a “backdoor method of case disposal,” where defenders decide a ...

Tagged with: public defenders Spangenberg Group