Missouri

Lawsuit claims new Missouri court secrecy law is unconstitutional • Missouri Independent

Published

2 years ago

June 3, 2024

Lawsuit claims new Missouri court secrecy law is unconstitutional • Missouri Independent

A state law requiring secrecy in court filings violates the Missouri Constitution’s requirement for open courts and imposes steep new costs on litigants, especially those pursuing appeals, a lawsuit filed last week argues.

The lawsuit, filed in Cole County by the Missouri Broadcasters Association, two attorneys and William Freivogel, editor of the Gateway Journalism Review, asks for the courts to overturn the law, passed during the 2023 legislative session.

Along with violating Missourians’ rights to courts that are open, the lawsuit alleges that the law violates First Amendment free speech protections in the U.S. Constitution and sections of the Missouri Constitution limiting lawmakers’ powers to expand bills beyond their original scope.

Under the law and rules implementing it, every reference to a witness or victim in every case filing must be censored or the attorney filing it risks sanctions.

“For example, court records cannot even name the victim of a murder case – even though murder is a terrible crime of great interest to every Missouri community and citizen,” the lawsuit states. “This makes it difficult for citizens and the media to fully follow and understand criminal cases of great interest. And there is no privacy interest for redacting murder victims’ names, because homicide victims, being deceased, have no personal privacy interest.”

Removing those names can be time consuming and – when lawyers charge hundreds of dollars per hour – expensive, said Dave Roland, one of the attorneys working on the case.

Missouri hides more court information from the public than other states

The rules put additional burdens on prosecutors, defense attorneys and counsel in civil cases to scour their filings for possible violations, Roland said. The task is multiplied many times when preparing cases for an appeal, he said, because a party seeking to overturn a lower court ruling must file a complete copy of the court record – including transcripts of trials and other hearings – with all the prohibited information removed.

Transcripts are already expensive, Roland said.

“Depending on the length of the trial you know, the cost can vary,” he said. “If you have a one day trial, it may only be a couple of hundred dollars for the transcript. If you’ve got a multi-week trial, then it could be thousands of dollars.”

The two attorneys who are parties to the case, Michael Gross and Nina McDonnell, have turned down clients because of the additional cost and time

“For example, Plaintiff McDonnell recently refused an employment discrimination direct appeal from a 12-day trial because redacting the transcripts would have required time the potential client could not afford, and the firm could not absorb,” the lawsuit states.

Roland’s co-counsels on the case include former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Wolff, who with Roland will represent Freivogel and the two attorneys, and Mike Nepple, Mark Sableman and Justin Mulligan of Thompson Coburn, representing the broadcasters.

In October, writing for Gateway Journalism Review, Sableman called Missouri the “State of Unnamed Persons.”

The new law hurts the public by hiding information, makes it difficult for attorneys outside the case to evaluate it and leaves people interested in a case unsure about how it was handled, he wrote.

Even judges writing appellate opinions must follow the rules and leave out any individual identifiers, he noted.

“You can’t tell if ‘Expert Witness’ in one case had been found to lack credibility in a previous case,” Sableman wrote “You can’t tell if Officer D.V. in State v. Smith was found guilty of misconduct in another case. If you know and care about a particular case, you can’t tell if the witnesses you know about were called to testify or considered by the court.”

The broadcasters association joined the lawsuit because court records are a staple of news reporting, said Chad Mahoney, executive director of the association.

“You have to have the facts and the context to give people the whole truth,” Mahoney said. “And now a lot of the context, according to what we’re hearing from some of our member newsrooms, is lost, making it very difficult for them to inform the public about what’s going on.”

The lawsuit not only asks the court to throw out the law requiring censorship of court documents, it also argues that the bill in its entirety violates procedural rules in the constitution for passing bills.

Under those rules, a bill changing court operating rules established by the Missouri Supreme Court must be “a law limited to the purpose.” In addition, bills cannot be amended to change their original purpose and must deal with “one subject clearly expressed in its title.”

The bill that included the court censorship language began in the Senate as a four-page bill changing the dates in one section of state law concerning when a fund to support court automation expires, with a title stating it was about court automation.

When it left the Senate, it was five pages long and included a pay raise for court reporters. The title stated it was about court operations.

When it returned from the House, it was 54 pages long, it altered 29 sections of state statutes and the title stated it was about judicial proceedings. There are at least five provisions that have nothing to do with the courts, the lawsuit states.

State Rep. Rudy Viet, a Wardsville Republican, shepherded the bill through the House. He could not be reached Monday for comment on the lawsuit.

The provision was added on the House floor by state Rep. Justin Hicks, a Lake St. Louis Republican. Hicks could not be reached Monday for comment.

Hicks, a candidate for the GOP nomination to Congress in the 3rd District, has used the courts repeatedly to bury embarrassing information about his past. In 2021, he persuaded a St. Louis County judge to seal the records from a 2010 domestic violence case when a woman accused Hicks, then 17, of choking her.

A consent order signed by Hicks barred him from contact with the woman for a year.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

When a potential candidate for Hicks’s House seat published copies of the order and other material from the case online, Hicks sued him and accused him of publishing private information. After initially sealing the case, St. Charles County Circuit Judge W. Christopher McDonough opened it, saying there was no “compelling justification” to keep it closed. The case has since been dismissed.

Because the lawsuit has just been filed, there has been no response from the state. But because the attorney general’s office, which will have to defend the law, has already been troubled by violations in its own court filings, Roland hopes for a quick resolution.

“It is possible, and this is me being optimistic, that the attorney general’s office may recognize that they’ve got a significant constitutional problem on their hands,” Roland said.

In a pending appeal of a $23 million award to HHS Technologies over a breach of contract claim with the state Medicaid system, Bailey’s office had to file the same set of documents three times to get the redactions right, the Kansas City Star reported.

“This illustrates the problem,” Roland said. “If the attorney general’s office is going to get dinged for failing to make proper redactions, it illustrates the problem.”

Source link

Click to comment

Missouri

Missouri lawmakers advance ‘A’ through ‘F’ school grading bill

Published

3 hours ago

March 9, 2026

Press Room

Missouri lawmakers advance ‘A’ through ‘F’ school grading bill

Annelise Hanshaw
| Missouri Independent

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s request to grade public schools on an “A” through “F” scale is pushing House lawmakers to approve legislation some think isn’t quite ready.

With approval and dissent on both sides of the aisle, the House voted a bill to create a new school accountability system through to the Senate 96-53 Thursday despite concerns the letter grades could be a “scarlet letter” for underperforming schools.

“Will this labeling system actually improve schools or will it mostly brand communities, destabilize staffing and incentivize gaming rather than learning?” asked state Rep. Kem Smith, a Democrat from Florissant, during House debate Tuesday morning, March 3.

She said the key metrics that determine the grade, performance and growth, are volatile.

“The label itself can become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she said. “The bill doubles down on high stakes metrics that are known to be unstable.”

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Dane Diehl, a Republican from Butler, told lawmakers that a performance-based school report card with “A” through “F” grades is inevitable. The details, though, are negotiable.

“The governor’s executive order, it is going to happen either way,” he said. “I think we tried to make that process a little better for school districts.”

Kehoe’s order directs the state’s education department to draw up a plan for the report cards and present it to the State Board of Education. The board could reject the idea, but with a board with primarily new members appointed by Kehoe, lawmakers have accepted the system as fate.

State Rep. Ed Lewis, a Republican from Moberly and chair of the House’s education committee, told the committee in January that he prioritized the bill as a way to give lawmakers influence over the final outcome. He is happy with the edits the committee made, which gives the education department more leeway to determine grade thresholds and removes a provision that would raise expectations once 65% of schools achieve “A” or “B” grades.

The House also approved an amendment March 3 that would grade schools’ environment. This would be based on the rates of student suspension, seclusion and restraint incident rates and satisfaction surveys given to students, parents and teachers.

The Senate’s version, which passed out of its education committee last week, does not include those changes.

“I think (the House bill) is the best product we have in the Capitol right now,” Lewis said. “I am not saying it’s complete, but it is the best we have right now.”

The changes have softened some skeptics of the legislation, like state Rep. Brad Pollitt.

Pollitt, a Sedalia Republican, said he didn’t support the legislation “for a number of years.” But with the edits, he sees potential for the legislation to usher in changes to the way the state accredits public schools.

The current process, he said, “nobody seems to like,” pointing to widespread concerns with the state’s standardized test.

Some of these changes are already happening quietly. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education received a grant from the federal government to develop a state assessment based on through-year testing, which would measure student growth throughout the school year, instead of a single summative assessment.

The department is poised to pilot the new test in 14 classrooms this spring, hoping to eventually offer it statewide within a few years. But the estimated startup cost of $2 million is one of many department requests cut from the governor’s proposed budget as the state grapples with declining revenue.

Creating the “A” through “F” report cards is estimated to cost a similar amount, if not more, according to the state’s fiscal note. The expense is largely frontloaded, going to the programming and technology support required to create the grade cards’ interface.

When The Independent asked Kehoe’s office about the fiscal note, the governor’s communications director Gabby Picard said he would work with “associated agencies” to determine appropriate funding “while remaining mindful of the current budget constraints and maintaining fiscal responsibility.”

The House’s version of the legislation includes an incentive program for high-performing schools, giving bonuses to go toward teacher recruitment and retention, if the legislature appropriates funding for the program.

The bill originally proposed incentives of $50-100 per student to subsidize teacher pay. This had large fiscal implications, and Lewis surmised that it would violate a section of the State Constitution prohibiting bonuses for public employees.

Making the funding optional and directing it to the school’s teacher recruitment and retention fund remedied those concerns. The Senate Education Committee removed the incentive program in its version of the legislation.

The House’s approval Thursday does not stop discussion and possible amendments. Next, the bill will go to the Senate for consideration, and if any changes are made, it will return to the House for more discussion.

This story was first published at missouriindependent.com.

Source link

Missouri

Car chase ends in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, at intersection of 19th, Main

Published

15 hours ago

March 8, 2026

Press Room

Car chase ends in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, at intersection of 19th, Main

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A car chase ended Sunday in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, according to police.

Around 2:15 p.m., people downtown reported a large police presence at 19th and Main streets.

Police said a car chase ended at the intersection after the suspect struck other vehicles.

Ryan Gamboa/KSHB 41

19th and Main

The suspect was taken into custody, per KCPD.

Due to the incident blocking the intersection, KC Streetcar service between Union Station and the River Market was temporarily suspended.

Streetcar service to downtown riders was restored before 4 p.m.

A KC Streetcar Authority spokesperson confirmed the streetcar was not involved in the KCPD incident.

This is a developing news story and may be updated.

—

If you have any information about a crime, you may contact your local police department directly. But if you want or need to remain anonymous, you should contact the Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline by calling 816-474-TIPS (8477), submitting the tip online or through the free mobile app at P3Tips.com. Depending on your tip, Crime Stoppers could offer you a cash reward.

Annual homicide details and data for the Kansas City area are available through the KSHB 41 News Homicide Tracker, which was launched in 2015. Read the KSHB 41 News Mug Shot Policy.

Source link

Missouri

Missouri Lottery Powerball, Pick 3 winning numbers for March 7, 2026

Published

1 day ago

March 8, 2026

Press Room

The Missouri Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big.

Here’s a look at March 7, 2026, results for each game:

Winning Powerball numbers from March 7 drawing

17-18-30-50-68, Powerball: 24, Power Play: 3

Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 3 numbers from March 7 drawing

Midday: 3-3-7

Midday Wild: 4

Evening: 0-8-8

Evening Wild: 5

Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 4 numbers from March 7 drawing

Midday: 0-2-7-4

Midday Wild: 2

Evening: 3-4-2-0

Evening Wild: 5

Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Cash Pop numbers from March 7 drawing

Early Bird: 03

Morning: 10

Matinee: 15

Prime Time: 14

Night Owl: 08

Check Cash Pop payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Show Me Cash numbers from March 7 drawing

05-06-21-23-28

Check Show Me Cash payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Powerball Double Play numbers from March 7 drawing

21-34-46-53-56, Powerball: 23

Check Powerball Double Play payouts and previous drawings here.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your lottery prize

All Missouri Lottery retailers can redeem prizes up to $600. For prizes over $600, winners have the option to submit their claim by mail or in person at one of Missouri Lottery’s regional offices, by appointment only.

To claim by mail, complete a Missouri Lottery winner claim form, sign your winning ticket, and include a copy of your government-issued photo ID along with a completed IRS Form W-9. Ensure your name, address, telephone number and signature are on the back of your ticket. Claims should be mailed to:

Ticket Redemption

Missouri Lottery

P.O. Box 7777

Jefferson City, MO 65102-7777

For in-person claims, visit the Missouri Lottery Headquarters in Jefferson City or one of the regional offices in Kansas City, Springfield or St. Louis. Be sure to call ahead to verify hours and check if an appointment is required.

For additional instructions or to download the claim form, visit the Missouri Lottery prize claim page.

When are the Missouri Lottery drawings held?

Powerball: 9:59 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Mega Millions: 10 p.m. Tuesday and Friday.
Pick 3: 12:45 p.m. (Midday) and 8:59 p.m. (Evening) daily.
Pick 4: 12:45 p.m. (Midday) and 8:59 p.m. (Evening) daily.
Cash4Life: 8 p.m. daily.
Cash Pop: 8 a.m. (Early Bird), 11 a.m. (Late Morning), 3 p.m. (Matinee), 7 p.m. (Prime Time) and 11 p.m. (Night Owl) daily.
Show Me Cash: 8:59 p.m. daily.
Lotto: 8:59 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday.
Powerball Double Play: 9:59 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Missouri editor. You can send feedback using this form.

Source link