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B e n c h P r e s s June, 2012

The Newsletter of St. Louis Circuit Court

Fathers’

Court Page 2

On the

Move Page 9

New &

Improved

Page 5

J 1

une is the month for change in St. Louis. Our cool spring changes into the sweltering days of summer. Rams frenzy turns to Cardinals fever. And changes are afoot here at the courthouse too. If you have visited the Circuit Court website lately you’ve seen an obvious change. Months of planning have finally paid off and the new site looks great. And Family Court is undergoing an important change. Non-payment of child support is a serious problem. It leaves countless city children lacking basic care and creates a cycle of poverty and neglect that gets passed on from one generation to the next. A revolutionary new idea, Fathering Court, is attempting to break that cycle. The circuit bench is changing with the departure of our respected colleague Angela Quigless. Judge Quigless has been selected to fill a vacancy on the Missouri Court of Appeals. We wish her all the best. Jane Schweitzer has been an impressive change in the Circuit Clerk’s Office. She has brought a renewed focus on customer service and employee morale and even recruited me to fire up the grill recently for the Court’s first employee weenie roast. The first of many I hope. We had a good time on the Civil Courts Building promenade grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, while staff provided some tasty dishes. This issue of Bench Press highlights some of these changes taking place at the courthouse. I hope you find it as informative as I do. And, as always, thank you for your dedication to Circuit Court. Steven Ohmer Presiding Judge

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The

Daddy

Docket

inety percent of all homeless and runaway children, 71% of high school dropouts, 70% of juveniles in custody and 82% of pregnant teens all share something in common. They were raised in a fatherless home.

In some parts of American society the problem of absent fathers has reached epidemic proportions. Aside from the loss of a strong family unit and a paternal role model, the fatherless home often creates the very urgent problem of money. Nonpayment of child support is one of the most common proceedings judges deal with in family court. Without that financial support single mothers struggle to provide their children with even basic necessities, which can translate into a host of destructive behaviors for kids growing up feeling unwanted and uncared for. Now St. Louis has a courtroom that might, with the right help, finally turn fathers into dads.

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*Statistics provided by the Fathers’ Support Center of St. Louis

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Experts have come to realize that failure to pay child support goes hand-in-hand with certain telltale obstacles in a man’s life, namely a lack of education and a substance abuse problem. Many now believe that until those factors are addressed the judicial system will stay locked in a vicious cycle of prosecuting and incarcerating fathers, while destroying any prospects they may have for getting an education and holding down a decent paying job. The way Family Court Judge Beth Hogan sees it, something has to change. “It becomes a hamster wheel. The state spends all this money going after guys who don’t have any money. We can lock them up for non-payment, but how will that solve anything?” She sees the problem up close and personal every day in Divi-sion 14, where men who have neglected to pay child support appear on her docket.

“Out of 20 men on

that docket 18 did

not have a high

school diploma

or a GED.”

In the coming weeks Judge Hogan’s division is set to begin what other courthouses have dubbed Fathering Court - a new way of looking at the problem and of dealing with men facing charges of nonsupport. Through an agreement with the Fathers’ Support Center of St. Louis, men who need help with those obstacles will receive services to get them educated, skilled in a job, off booze or drugs and for the first time involved in their children’s lives. The extent of this problem in St. Louis hit home for Judge Hogan one day while reading the docket of men locked up in the city jail on child support charges. “Out of 20 men on that docket 18 did not have a high school diploma or a GED. That’s when I knew we had to take a step back and really start looking at this.” Judge Hogan now separates the fathers who appear on her child support docket into two categories - those who have a high school education and those who don’t. Those who don’t get sent to a social worker who helps them enroll in GED classes. That attacks one of the problems associated with child support. The Fathering Court program will attack another - teaching men how to be active, participating dads.

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Men who have no bond with their children have an easy time pushing child support payments to the back burner. It’s not a priority. But when there is a face attached to it, a real person on the other end, it becomes much more difficult to ignore the guilt. There is an incentive to keep putting that check in the mail each month. “Most of the time, if you allow him to bond with his child, you won’t have to force a guy to take care of his responsibilities,” said Halbert Sullivan, CEO of the Fathers’ Support Center. “Just like the mothers, fathers want to see their kids be good, do good and succeed in life.” The problem, Sullivan said, is that many women get angry at the fathers and refuse to let them have contact with their kids. And if there was no legal marriage, which is often the case, the fathers have no legal rights to custody or visitation. The Fathers’ Support Center deals with a delicate web of issues. Teaching men how to get along with the mothers, understanding the resentment their children probably harbor toward them, how to set appropriate expectations and appropriately discipline children - it’s all part of the Center’s rigorous “father boot camp.” And of course there is the challenge of getting the men educated and prepared for stable jobs. The average dad at the Center is earning less than $20,000 a year, owes about $200 a month for each child and has at least two children.

“Our dads are not deadbeats. Most of them are just dead broke,” proclaimed Sullivan. This month Judge Hogan ordered the men on her docket to attend Congressman Wil-liam Lacy Clay’s annual job fair at Harris-Stowe State University. They were required to talk to at least three employers at the fair and make an attempt to find meaningful employment. They were eager to comply. “Even people with postgraduate degrees are getting laid off in this economy, so these guys know how big of a hurdle they are facing,” said Judge Hogan. “They are ready to take whatever help is offered.” The challenge they face is sizeable. But the end result could be a monumental shift for a city grappling with the generational effects of men fathering children out of wedlock and abandoning them. Those kids grow up with the kinds of behavior and discipline problems that surprise no one. How different would the city look and what impact on crime rates would we see if every child had a devoted and committed father in his/her life? “When I see a kid with his pants sagging or a young teenage girl dressed totally inappropriately I know there is no father in that home,” said Sullivan. “ No father is going to let his baby girl leave the house dressed like that, and he’s not going to let his son look and act like a gangster.”

“Our dads are

not deadbeats.

Most of them

are just dead

broke.”

Ready

Set

Launch Circuit Court has launched a new and

improved website. www.stlcitycircuitcourt.com went live a few weeks ago and offers enhanced features like the circuit’s newsletter, downloadable court forms and the ability for citizens to respond to their jury summonses directly through the site. The Court has also launched its own YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/STLcircuitcourt

“We have many interesting and noteworthy stories to tell here at the courthouse. People might be surprised at some of the really im-pressive things our judges and staff are doing,” said Public Information Officer Matt Murphy. “Technology allows us to get that information out to the public like never before.”

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The site was specifically designed to be more user friendly – directing the public to appropriate departments and answering common questions in the hopes of cutting down on the volume of daily phone calls to the courthouse. “If people can get their jury duty questions answered, or find out where to get copies of documents without having to get on the phone and call the courthouse, that’s better and saves time for everyone on both ends,” said Murphy. With so many different offices and detailed information to be considered, it took many meetings over many months before consensus was reached on what the new site should look like and what material was most important to include. "It needed to be visually interesting, but also provide functional content that can be easily found and utilized by our viewers,” said Guy Riddler, Application Developer for the Court’s IT department. “I think the site now is easier to read, more professional looking, and better organized around easier site navigation."

“Technology

allows us to get

that information

out to the

public like never

before.”

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By the Book

are glimpses of our nation’s history lay tucked away in the probate courts of America’s county courthouses. During early settlement days the ownership and transfer of property was just about the most important transaction there was, and probate was where those proceedings got recorded.

RRRR

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Even before establishing a criminal court, village founders would often create a probate court to settle disputes and record legal property rights. One of these rare and historic documents can be found on the 10th floor of the Civil Courts Building in the circuit’s Probate Division. “We all knew the book existed because it had been referenced in a newspaper article back in the 1940s, but no one knew where it was. Nobody knew what happened to it,” said Commissioner Patrick Connaghan. The document he is referring to is a book titled simply, “Probate A.” Dating all the way back to 1806, it is the earliest known record of the Probate Court, containing entries long before the city was a city (St. Louis was founded in 1764 but not incorporated until 1822.)

Auguste Chouteau (who, along with Pierre Laclède, founded St. Louis) served as the first clerk of the Probate Court. His signature can be found throughout the book. Most startling, however, is a brief entry made on August 11, 1813. It notes the appointment of William Clark as guardian for the orphan children of Sacajawea, who every St. Louisan knows as the woman who helped guide Lewis and Clark on their history-making expedition through the western United States. “It doesn’t mention her by name, but it says that the children of an Indian woman and her husband, Toussaint Charbon-neau, were to be adopted by William Clark. It’s just a few sentences,” said Commissioner Connaghan. “Probate A” was discovered a few years ago by clerk Kim Hale and the division’s legal counsel, Jill Hanley, while the two were doing document shredding. It was in the bottom drawer in the office wall safe. No one knows how many decades it had been sitting there untouched, but employees who have worked in Probate for as long as 25 years had never seen it before.

The question now is what to do with it. Obviously the book is a significant piece of St. Louis history. A preservationist hired by the state archives has cleaned and restored the pages as much as possible and it now remains locked away in an office. Commissioner Connaghan isn’t sure what will happen next. “There have been some discussions about loaning it out to the historical society but that will need to be coordinated through the state archives. It’s an unusual bit of history and I’m sure other people would like to see it.”

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Moving On

fter 17 years on the circuit bench Judge Angela Quigless is moving on (or up, as

some call it) to the Missouri Court of Appeals.

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How has Circuit Court changed over the years? When I first came on the bench we didn’t have a lot of technology. Things were a lot more people and paper generated but that is changing all the time. How does the job of circuit judge differ from appeals judge? My job on the circuit bench has been very people oriented. We deal with jurors, attorneys and the community. On the court of appeals there’s not as much people interaction. It’s much more academic. I think the community outreach though is very important, especially for children to learn the legal system and to meet people who might be role models for them in their careers. I intend to stay very active in community projects. Will you miss the excitement of trial court? Yes. I do enjoy that. But one thing I welcome is the change from having to make very quick decisions. Appeals allows you to be more learned and more deliberative and a chance to contemplate and study the law before rendering a decision. What’s been the best part of Ciruit Court? I have loved every aspect of this job. It has given me a chance to affect people’s lives on so many different levels and I would like to think that those were positive effects.

When did you know you wanted a legal career? I was 12. I had a school counselor who told me “you people” could not be lawyers and judges. What did that counselor mean by “you people?” Race. You have to remember this was in the 1970s and we weren’t too far from the days of segregation and she was older. She probably lived most of her life with those separations. It was always in my mind to prove her wrong.

“I have loved

every aspect

of this job.”

L

A W DAY

President Dwight Eisenhower established the first Law Day in 1958 to mark the nation's commitment to the rule of law. In 1961, Congress issued a joint resolution designating May 1 as the official date for celebrating Law Day and every president since then has issued a Law Day proclamation on May 1 to honor the occasion.

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"It is fitting that the people of this nation should remember with pride and vigilantly guard the great heritage of liberty, justice, and equality under law which our forefathers bequeathed to us,” President Eisenhower said. "No Courts, No Justice, No Freedom” is the theme chosen by the American Bar Association for this year’s Law Day, which is celebrated in courthouses across America with special events and observances, particularly aimed at educating school-aged children. Commissioner Anne-Marie Clarke, retired Judge Iris Ferguson and Millie Aulbur, Director of Citizen Education for the Missouri Bar Association, organized this year’s Law Day observance at St. Louis Circuit Court. “We’ve been doing this for the past 12 years in conjunction with the Delta Sigma Theta sorority,” said Commissioner Clarke. “Unfortunately, for so many people, the only experience they ever have with the courts is what they see on TV. This lets them see what happens in the real world and every year I think the kids do take away something worthwhile.” Probably the best lesson learned for young students is that choices in life have very real consequences. Reading about the criminal justice system in a text book does not compare to the courtroom experience of seeing prisoners in orange jumpsuits stand before a judge to face the music. “When they actually saw the prisoners I think that really opened their eyes,” said Fanning Middle School teacher Cheryl Jackson, who brought her class to the courthouse this year. “It is important for them to see that whatever choices they make will certainly have consequences.”

Many courts around the country have used Law Day 2012 to draw attention to the problem of funding shortages, which have crippled some jurisdictions. New Hampshire, for example, delayed civil trials for a year. A municipal court in Ohio announced that no new cases could be filed unless the litigants brought their own paper to the courthouse. And in Alabama, a judge asked the charitable arm of a local bar association to donate money to help pay juror stipends. This year’s Law Day proclamation signed by President Obama seems to take note of the difficulties many courthouses have been facing in recent years. “The courthouse doors must be open and the necessary services must be in place to allow all litigants, judges, and juries to operate efficiently. Likewise, we must ensure that access to justice is not an abstract theory, but a concrete commitment that delivers the promise of counsel and assistance for all who seek it. “Today, let us reflect upon the role generations of legal and judicial professionals have played in building an America worthy of the ideals that inspired its founding. The timeless principles of equal protection and due process remain at the heart of our democracy, and on Law Day, we recommit to upholding them not just in our time, but for all time.”

Students from Fanning Middle School took part in mock trial exercises at the Civil Courts Building during this year’s Law Day.

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Sidebar

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Employees enjoyed a good old fashioned

weenie roast (April 4, 2012.) Congrats to

the Executions & Abstract department for

winning the cupcake decorating contest!

Chief DJO Shanté Lampley, Judge Ohmer

and Commissioner Anne-Marie Clarke

accept an award from Missouri Supreme

Court Judge Zel Fischer, honoring Juvenile

Court for moving child abuse/neglect cases

with impressive speed.

A life-size statue of Dred and Harriet Scott was

unveiled in front of the Old Courthouse on June

8, 2012. A St. Louis jury granted Scott his free-

dom from slavery in 1850, but that decision was

eventually overturned on appeal and pushed the

United States closer to

civil war.

B e n c h P r e s s

22nd Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri

A Publication of St. Louis Circuit Court

Next Issue - September, 2012

comments / story suggestions:

Matthew.Murphy@courts.mo.gov