Recent Missouri Editorials

The Independence Examiner,

Common sense steps always just out of reach in General Assembly

Sometimes it’s easy to overlook some of the simple, common-sense things that our legislators in Jefferson City cannot find a way past.

Two quick examples:

. Years of data make it abundantly clear that texting while driving is incredibly dangerous. No one should be subject to the injury, death and damage that can arrive randomly when another driver’s attention is distracted from the road. Everyone has a story of a close call - or worse. That’s why 47 states have banned texting while driving.

Missouri is not one of them. It only bans that for drivers under 21. Missouri doesn’t even ban cell phones in the hands of school bus drivers.

This is a no-brainer, yet our state just can’t make this happen, though legislation has been filed again this year.

. Every state but one - Missouri - has a statewide prescription drug monitoring program. This is a direct response to the opioid crisis, an attempt to cut down on addicts going from doctor to doctor to score prescriptions for powerful pain meds. Several counties, including Jackson County, started their own program a couple years ago with the thought that it would nudge the Legislature to act on a statewide plan. Didn’t happen.

Former Gov. Greitens in 2017 rolled out a program that amounts to a half-step. The opioid crisis is real, and Missouri is among the harder hit states. We deserve better for the sake of both the individuals affected and for their families and communities.

These aren’t even among the big issues that are, or should be, on our legislators’ agenda: roads and bridges, health care, schools, attracting business and finding the workers for good jobs. But why can’t they address relatively straightforward issues with solutions that have worked in nearly all other states? Inaction causes suffering.

It makes sense that a bill is seldom written, filed, heard in committee, debated and amended, and then passed and signed in a single year. There are 197 representatives and senators in Jefferson City, with a wide range of perspectives and interests, and it takes time to get people on board. But it often takes far too long just to enact the common-sense stuff that shouldn’t be controversial.

Legislators are nearly one month into their four-and-a-half month session. We get the sense that leaders in Jefferson City have a pretty good grasp of Missouri’s challenges and opportunities. But what is the plan - other than what Gov. Parson himself calls his “Band-Aid” plan to fix 250 bridges - on infrastructure? There’s lot of hand-wringing on workforce development, as good jobs go wanting. Lots of talk. Not a new issue. Now, what’s the plan, and will enough elected officials get behind it?

And is it too much to ask that leadership in the House and Senate could say enough is enough? Pass a texting bill. Pass the prescription-drug program. This shouldn’t be that hard.

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The Columbia Tribune, Feb. 3

NCAA penalties against Mizzou teach the wrong lesson

“Honesty is the best policy,” as the saying goes.

That expression, widely attributed to Benjamin Franklin, holds as true today as it did two centuries ago. Some University of Missouri faithful are likely to disagree, however, following Thursday’s turn of events.

The MU Athletics Department was delivered a gut punch Thursday in the way of NCAA penalties for academic fraud. From 2015 to 2016, an academic tutor helped 12 student-athletes in the football, softball and basketball programs cheat by doing their coursework for them. The NCAA investigation concluded that the tutor, Yolanda Kumar, acted alone and that MU “did the right thing” by reporting the problem. But that didn’t stop the NCAA Committee on Infractions from slapping MU with some of the most severe penalties possible, in the form of program budget cuts, vacated wins, the loss of scholarships, postseason bans and three years of probation.

Make no mistake, cheating is wrong. Period. But it wasn’t the university, its officials or coaching staff that erred. In fact, MU reported the wrongdoing itself.

Here’s why we’re left scratching our heads.

The NCAA also investigated the University of North Carolina after it became known UNC created fake classes so student-athletes would have the easiest academic path possible. This went on for 18 years and involved more than 3,100 students enrolled in “paper classes.” UNC defended these courses vehemently and refused to cooperate with the NCAA investigation. UNC was rewarded for its deceit, as no penalties came from the case.

“UNC asserted that although courses were created and created by an office secretary, students completed their own work,” said Dave Roberts, chief hearing officer for the NCAA investigative panel.

There you have it. UNC created phony courses that were so easy students wouldn’t need to cheat, and the NCAA says that’s alright.

The real victims here are the MU administration, coaches and athletes who weren’t at the university when the cheating occured. Other victims include high school athletes committed to play for MU in 2019, current student-athletes who didn’t cheat but have no postseason future in their senior seasons, and fans stripped of any hope there might be championships in store for the football, softball and baseball programs.

Those who deserve to be punished for academic fraud are all long gone. So are the university’s former president and chancellor, and most of the coaches for these programs, employed at the time the fraud occurred. The lesson the NCAA is trying to teach will never reach its intended recipients.

MU intends to appeal the NCAA penalties. We hope they win. We’re fans of fairness when doling out justice. MU deserves a punishment that fits the crime.

Regardless of what happens during the appeal, it’s worth remembering MU did the right thing. University leaders were honest. We hope they continue to be and don’t take the wrong lesson from all this - that sometimes it pays to be dishonest.

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The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 31

High cash bail without due process violates defendants’ fundamental rights

If America’s constitutional principle of justice had to be boiled down to four words, they would be: “innocent until proven guilty.” That’s at the core of everything that happens from the arrest to the courtroom. A trial establishes guilt. Punishment is meted out only after a guilty verdict is rendered.

Yet hundreds of low-income criminal defendants in St. Louis who can’t come up with thousands of dollars for cash bail are routinely jailed by the city, often for more than a month, before they can even talk to a public defender.

Those who can pay are free until trial; those who can’t - even those accused of relatively minor, nonviolent crimes - remain behind bars for extended periods, prohibited from even contesting the bail amount, until the system decides to start the trial that will determine whether they’ve committed any crime.

This is incarceration for poverty, pure and simple. It must end.

The civil rights organization ArchCity Defenders filed suit Monday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis against the city, Sheriff Vernon Betts and numerous judges and other officials, the Post-Dispatch’s Celeste Bott reported. “Every day in the city of St. Louis, presumptively innocent individuals remain in jail simply because they are too poor to pay for their freedom,” the suit says.

The plaintiffs don’t argue that the concept of requiring bail while awaiting trial is inherently unjust. Rather, they allege it is being applied here with, “a complete lack of process,” says ArchCity Executive Director Blake Strode.

The plaintiff alleges, for example, that judges who initially set bail don’t follow standard legal guidelines, such as assessing the necessity of cash bail, the defendant’s ability to pay, the available alternatives to bail or other factors. The average cash bail is around $25,000.

If defendants attempt to argue over the necessity or amount of the bail, they are told a lawyer has to make that argument, the lawsuit adds. A defendant who can’t afford a lawyer has to wait until a public defender is appointed - a wait that often lasts a month or more. The defendant sits behind bars that whole time.

The announcement Wednesday by Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Zel Fischer of new rules restricting use of bail by the state’s courts adds much-needed clarity, but ArchCity is pressing ahead with its suit anyway, as it should. Setting new rules doesn’t mean much if, as alleged, the city court system is ignoring the rules already in place.

Certainly there are cases in which high bail is appropriate. But it’s a denial of due process if St. Louis’ justice system automatically jails defendants for weeks awaiting trial while they receive no legal representation and no avenue to argue the conditions of bail. Ultimately, it’s a denial of the core principle of “innocent until proven guilty.”