Special session detour

In my previous report, I outlined the Special Session that Gov. Parson called to address the issue of violent crime. The aspects he felt had room for improvement were about when to possibly try a minor as an adult, protecting witnesses and their testimony, removing residency requirements for cops in St. Louis, and enhancing the law against endangering the welfare of a child by including weapons offenses.
The Missouri Senate took up all these items in one big bill, SB 1, which it passed and sent to the Missouri House for consideration. The House’s Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the bill on Aug. 10. Any bill that covers multiple topics runs the risk of having one of the provisions be controversial enough that it threatens to kill the whole bill, and there were some committee members that were uncomfortable with one provision or another. Plus, the governor has now announced he would like to add something called Concurrent Jurisdiction to the bill, which would give the Attorney General the power to help out in prosecuting crimes in cities where the local prosecuting attorney is either overwhelmed or not doing their job.
Consequently, SB 1 has been set aside for now. Instead, the House will offer up separate bills on each topic, and refer them to different committees for evaluation. The issue of protecting witnesses and residency requirements seem to be non-controversial. But Concurrent Jurisdiction will be controversial with St. Louis House and Senate members as they see it as an insult to St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Kim Gardner, who was the official that took away the McCloskys guns after they defended their home from protesters.
The reason for adding Concurrent Jurisdiction is it appears the St. Louis prosecuting attorney has become ineffective or unwilling to prosecute violent crime. In 2018, St. Louis had 186 murders, but only 61 of those resulted in charges being filed against a suspect. In 2019, St. Louis had eight more murders (194), but 21 fewer charges (40). In 2020, St. Louis is on pace for 297 murders and only 61 charges. Their conviction rates on those charges has been declining as well.
For those reasons, Gov. Parson added this topic to the Special Session call.