St. Louis City Criminal Justice Blog

This week two St. Louis Metropolitan Police Officers, Stephen Ogunjobi and Louis Wilson, go to jury trial in Division 6 in a civil case for damages for assault and excessive use of force (battery) brought by Kristine Hendrix, a 38 year old African-American woman and elected University City School Board member, who was peacefully protesting police misconduct back in May, 2015, outside Busch Stadium when she was arrested and repeatedly tased.

Fortunately for Ms. Hendrix, the arrest was caught on video.

Ms. Hendrix was subsequently charged in municipal court with resisting arrest. After a bench trial she was acquitted. At a trial de novo in Associate Circuit Court, she was again acquitted. Judge Colbert-Botchway wrote in her opinion that “[t]he evidence presented in this case does not establish that Ms. Hendrix was ever given an opportunity to comply before she was tased repeatedly and then handcuffed.”

Even more concerning is Judge Colbert-Botchway’s description of the evidence presented at the trial:

“It is clear from the video and from Officer Wilson’s testimony that he and Officer Ogunjobi approached Ms. Hendrix from behind. . . . [T]he ‘pop’ sound of Officer Ogunjobi’s taser clearly can be heard as he applies it to Ms. Hendrix for the first time. Within a couple of seconds of that Ms. Hendrix can be heard saying “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Why did you do that? I wasn’t doing anything?” An officer can be heard saying “Put your hands behind your back,” but before he even finishes the sentence the sound of Officer Ogunjobi administering another cycle of tasing to Ms. Hendrix can be heard, and she screams. In response to the officer’s command, she then can be heard saying five times in succession “I can’t it hurts! I can’t it hurts!” then “It hurts so bad, please, please stop.” She repeats this several more times, then Officer Ogunjobi tases her a third time. Again, Ms. Hendrix screams, then says, “Oh my God, why are you doing this, I’m on the ground.””

You can see the video for yourself here:

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/woman-sues-st-louis-police-claiming-brutality-during-her-arrest/article_fd5b0de8-0395-54ef-b6e5-d1f9b100f81e.html

I don’t expect this to end well for the officers.

Another departure . . .

Matei Stroescu is leaving the CAO for the Hepler Broom law firm. He is a fine trial lawyer and has the distinction of beating Scott Rosenblum in the well-publicized Bommarito trial. Even more impressive in my opinion, he was able to survive being assigned to Division 3 for an entire year!

By my count that makes the fourth prosecutor — the other three being Peter Bruntrager, Tristin Estep, and Rachel Smith — to leave since January, 2020. When your trial staff is at half-strength with less than twenty-five felony trial attorneys, that’s a huge hit to the office. And, consider the loss in terms of experience: Rachel Smith was the Chief Trial Assistant, Matei was essentially a team leader and handling only serious felony cases, and Tristin and Peter were also both handling only serious felonies.

I’m sure there will be more to come.

Up-coming trials of interest . . .

The week of March 23rd. Nathaniel Hendren, the police officer who allegedly shot fellow police officer Katlyn Alix while playing Russian roulette, goes on trial in Division 7.

The week of March 30th. William Don Tisaby, Kim Gardner’s hand-picked investigator in the Greitens fiasco, goes to trial on perjury charges in Division 11.

Friday, February 14, 2020, is Chief Trial Attorney Rachel Smith’s last day at the Circuit Attorney’s Office.

Hallelujah! Let the celebrations begin.

Mary Fox is out as the District Defender of the Public Defender’s Office for the 22nd Judicial Circuit, and has moved on and up to be the statewide director of the system. I have no doubt she will be very successful in that position. She is in my opinion an outstanding manager who focuses on the big picture. These strengths are much better suited to her new role.

Even better news for the 22nd Judicial Circuit is Matthew Mahaffey was selected as the new District Defender. He’s a good defense attorney, everyone in the courthouse likes and respects him, and he genuinely cares about his clients. I hope his focus will remain more on what is in the best interest of the individual client rather than take the Mary Fox big-picture approach to running that office.

When Kim Gardner took over the Circuit Attorney’s Office (CAO) in January, 2017, it was one of the elite prosecuting attorney offices in the state. The CAO tried more felony jury trials than any other office. It was staffed with a little over 40 felony trial prosecutors, some of whom were career prosecutors that had been there for decades. The CAO had a long tradition of being a training ground for future leaders in the legal community, producing numerous federal and state judges, local and state legislators, many of the top civil lawyers in the area, etc. The U.S. Attorney’s Office would routinely recruit from the career prosecutors of the CAO. Many of St. Louis’ legal families, the Dowds, the Bruntragers, the Finneys, the Carmodys, etc. sent their children to the CAO to perform public service while learning how to try cases. Because of this reputation, it was difficult to get hired by the CAO and there was typically a long waiting list of applicants.

That all changed when Kim Gardner took over.

She fired many of the City’s long-time prosecutors, and made it clear to the remaining others that they were not appreciated or welcome. For example, she fired Beth Orwick, Jennifer Joyce’s appointed Chief Trial Assistant. Beth was one of the finest prosecutors in that office. She was so good in fact that the U.S. Attorney’s Office hired her the day after Gardner fired her! She is now the St. Louis County Counselor, the lawyer in charge of overseeing all legal work of the County. Of the original 40+ felony trial attorneys in the office when Gardner took over three years ago, only 4 remain.

Of course, Gardner hired replacements. And interestingly, quite a few of those quit or were fired too. I’ve seen quite a few of them in St. Louis County, working for the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office there.

Today, her office can’t find lawyers to fill vacancies because the word is out. The fine reputation of the CAO is gone. The CAO was staffed with over 40 felony trial lawyers when Gardner took over in 2017; today it has only 20+ felony trial lawyers. Its felony trial staff is almost at half-strength — just in terms of the number of lawyers available to handle cases.

While the staff she inherited was loaded with experienced trial prosecutors, her trial staff today overwhelming consists of lawyers with little experience. In September, 2019, the St. Louis Post Dispatch estimated that 470 combined years of experience had left her office.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/years-of-experience-gone-kimberly-m-gardner-has-lost-more/article_c5b70e30-d3c3-551c-8a90-d1f03b47c1e3.html

This matters because a weakened prosecutor’s office cannot provide the community the full justice services they deserve. The CAO is an integral cog in the operation of the justice system. When the prosecutors can’t do their job, the system can’t work.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/after-judge-rejects-delay-prosecutors-dismiss-murder-other-charges-against/article_0e458c4b-4ab7-5935-bc18-dea185dabfe3.html

https://www.kmov.com/news/news-uncovers-pattern-of-delays-in-murder-trials-amid-claims/article_a5e271ec-47cc-11ea-9a01-0372dc9edbc0.html

Unfortunately this problem can’t be solved in the near future because trial attorneys learn through apprenticeship and practice. Young prosecutors need experienced guidance to develop the skills required to perform their job successfully — and that guidance and experience is in very short supply in the CAO. And even with sound guidance, it takes time for a young prosecutor to develop. I respect the efforts of the trial staff of the CAO: they are doing the best they can with their limited resources and experience but they are overworked and inexperienced.

Kim Gardner said she was going to reform the system and instead she broke it.

Kim Gardner has been trying to free Lamar Johnson. Johnson is in the Missouri Department of Corrections after being convicted of murder in 1995. He appealed his conviction and lost. Then he claimed ineffective assistance of defense counsel and lost. Then he appealed that and lost. He’s since filed numerous habeas corpus writs in state and federal courts where he claimed his innocence and blamed prosecutorial misconduct for his convictions. He’s had numerous hearings on these issues in both state and federal court. All of his claims have been consistently denied.

Yet Ms. Gardner believes he is innocent and has taken steps to try to free him:

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-man-s-challenge-to-his-murder-conviction-moves/article_c83a298b-53e1-523b-9fa8-0ace60ec3b81.html

I’m not going to discuss the Lamar Johnson case but wanted to provide background.

You see, I don’t mind the reexamination of old convictions. That can be a good thing. What I find troubling is Ms. Gardner’s allegations regarding prosecutorial misconduct by Dwight Warren, the prosecutor who convicted Lamar Johnson.

I have known Dwight Warren for at least 25 years, and have jury-tried well over a dozen murder cases against him. He is now retired. But in his heyday he was an outstanding prosecutor, one of the best I’ve ever known. I’d guess he has tried a hundred or so murder cases against all the top defense attorneys. At one point he was the head of the homicide prosecution unit in the Circuit Attorney’s Office. He was a cop before he went to law school. He was in the Army reserves and retired as a Colonel. He was a prosecutor’s prosecutor.

In all my dealings with Dwight I found him to be honest, often straight-forward to the point of bluntness. He was a minimalist in trial, putting on an often stark case that consisted solely of the evidence he needed to get a conviction with no additional fluff. Dwight didn’t put on shows or circuses, he didn’t throw on the kitchen sink in trial, there was no flamboyance. He was just rock-solid, competent prosecution all the way.

And, I’ve never met a prosecutor that didn’t look up to Dwight Warren. Except Kim Gardner.

She fired Dwight Warren, as she did so many other top-notch prosecutors that were in the Circuit Attorney’s Office not too long after she took over. She fired him on a Monday morning before he was to pick a jury in a robbery trial. Like the professional he was, he stayed until the week’s end to finish the trial — a guilty verdict — and then left the Circuit Attorney’s Office without fanfare.

That was a few years ago before the Lamar Johnson reexamination. Now Gardner’s trying to trash his reputation in an effort to free Johnson. This is Dwight’s most recent public response:

https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/columnists/dwight-warren-circuit-attorney-says-lamar-johnson-deserves-a-new/article_622a172c-519b-510d-8722-654f764b64f0.html

That’s typical Dwight. He simply says the evidence for Johnson’s claim of innocence just doesn’t add up. No personal attacks. He doesn’t take umbrage or act outraged. It is what it is.

And, of course, the state and federal courts have reviewed these same claims and found no prosecutorial misconduct.

Dwight Warren was a real prosecutor. If your loved-one was murdered, you were happy that Dwight was handling your case. He did the job right. The police, the judges, defense attorneys, and other prosecutors all respected him. In other words, he was nothing like Kim Gardner.

I miss Dwight Warren and what he brought to the 22nd Judicial Circuit.

Much has been happening in the City of St. Louis’ criminal justice system, so I thought it would be a good time to start a blog and provide an insider’s view of what’s really going on. I am a criminal defense attorney and every day I deal with the Circuit Attorney’s Office, the Sheriff’s Department, the courts, the Work House, the Justice Center. etc. These are solely my perspectives, opinions, and insights.

I will also use this blog to comment on news and other developments that pertain to the City’s criminal justice system.

For example, did you see the following story:

New Missouri bill would allow St. Louis Police to turn over cases to Schmitt’s office; Roorda blasts Gardner

It seems that in 2019 the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department sought charges in 7,045 cases. The Circuit Attorney’s Office, after reviewing those, only filed charges in 1,641 of those cases. That’s a 23% filing rate. The police are frustrated because in over 75% of the time they seek criminal charges, the Circuit Attorney’s Office declines to prosecute. It’s gotten to the point where St. Louis area state legislators want to allow the police to take cases to the Attorney General’s Office for criminal prosecution — in other words, to do an end run around the Circuit Attorney’s Office.

Presently, the feds are already picking up quite a few of these city cases. Almost every gun and/or fentanyl case from the city now ends up with the feds. They have also started taking over many carjacking cases. Unless things change, I only see this trend continuing.

This problem was created by Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. She wants to reform the criminal justice system. Many of us support various justice reforms. But justice reform is not achieved by simply refusing to issue charges or refusing to work with the police. When that happens, other agencies will step in to fill the void. Then, any of your reforms will be sidestepped, your efforts at reform will be in vain.

As this news article demonstrates, the City and it’s criminal justice system is interconnected with other justice systems, including the County, St. Charles, the feds, the municipalities, etc. Criminal justice reform is not just a local City issue, and unlike how Ms. Gardner suggests, you can’t approach it like it is. For real changes to occur, all of these groups must work together, towards common, agreed-upon reforms, otherwise they will be working at cross-purposes with each group frustrating the goals of the others.