Working Group to Tackle “Broken” Missouri Municipal Courts

Working Group to Tackle “Broken” Missouri Municipal Courts

Claiming that “the integrity of the Missouri judicial system is at stake,” a St. Louis Post-Dispatch http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=82369&qid=5139740 editorial highlights the difficult task ahead for a municipal court working group recently formed http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=82370&qid=5139740 by the state supreme court. According to the editorial, the group will have to tackle civil rights violations in many municipal courts including “unreasonable fines,” “placing drivers licenses on hold for failure to pay non-moving violations,” “using (the) courts…to fulfill ticket quotas to balance budgets,” as well as “jailing those who can’t pay.” The editorial asserts that “f [the municipal courts are] not fixed, the entire judicial system in Missouri falls.” “Most residents who experience justice for the first time in the municipal courts will come away believing, rightly, that the system is corrupt.”