Criminal Sentencing and Punishment

Cleophus King: Life Sentence For Man Who Killed County Counselor In Violent Plot

On March 6, 2008, St. Louis County Counselor Luke Meiners agreed to take Ronald Johnson to the house of Cleophus King -- because Johnson said he needed to do his laundry there. Johnson and King, who were once lovers, had a different plan. They had plotted to rob Meiners. When they arrived at King' ... More >>

"Knockout King" Elex Murphy Sentenced, Widow Testifies, "My Family is Destroyed"

Last month, Elex Murphy, the so-called "knockout king" accused of beating a 72-year-old stranger to death in Dutchtown, was convicted -- two years after the brutal attack. And last week Murphy was sentenced, the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office said on Friday, with an announcement that included ... More >>

Charles Smith: St. Louis Man Sentenced After Attempted Kidnapping, Rape of Girl at Bus Stop

As a fifteen-year-old girl walked to her school bus stop, St. Louis resident Charles Smith grabbed her, forced her into his car with a box cutter -- and tried to rape her. She managed to escape half-clothed and flagged down a passing motorist for help. This is the terrible incident of violence tha ... More >>

Death Penalty: Senator Joe Keaveny Says Missouri Must Assess Costs of Execution

As we've reported, lawmakers have pushed this year to repeal the death penalty in Missouri with a proposal that is not likely to get far in the legislature. State Senator Joe Keaveny, a Democrat who represents St. Louis, is supportive of an end to capital punishment in the state -- but he's taking a ... More >>

Guns: Bruce Humphrey of St. Louis Gets Seven Years On Federal Illegal Weapons Charges

Bruce Humphrey, a St. Louis resident, was sentenced today to 92 months behind bars on federal charges of illegal firearm possession. The decision comes at a time of intense debate in Missouri around gun laws, gun rights -- and how gun crimes are prosecuted. In this federal case, it seems Humphre ... More >>

Death Penalty Repeal in Missouri: Senator Gina Walsh Says Capital Punishment is Not Pro-Life

State Senator Gina Walsh says she is well aware that there will likely be opposition to her controversial proposal to repeal the death penalty in Missouri -- but that's not stopping her from pushing forward. "My constituency probably won't like it," she tells Daily RFT. "But this is something I su ... More >>

How Fair Are Federal Sentencing Guidelines? One Skeptical District Judge Weighs in

In this week's feature story, "Our Military Doesn't Have a Gambling Problem," we narrate the tumultuous swan dive of decorated Army Sgt. Dreux Perkins, who returned home from a combat tour in Iraq with post traumatic stress disorder and a pathological gambling addiction. His condition prompted him t ... More >>

Maurice Leon Wiggins Gets 16 Months in Jail for Southern Illinois University Bomb Threat

​Maurice Leon Wiggins, 23, the Chicago man who threatened to bomb three dormitories at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and then rape and kill 30 women, was sentenced to 16 months in prison, three years supervised release and a $100 fine plus court costs. He could have been sentenced to ten ... More >>

Missouri's Prison Population Getting Older

In Missouri, the percentage of state prisoners age 50 and over has doubled in the past ten years, rising to 15.3 percent of all inmates in fiscal year 2010, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch, titled "Old Behind Bars: The Aging Prison Population in the United States." That change repr ... More >>

Iraq War Vet Sentenced for Smuggling Cigarettes Into Prison

A local military veteran who more recently spent his working days on one side of the iron bars will soon be living on the other side of them. Yesterday a U.S. district judge punished a federal correctional officer who previously served in Iraq for smuggling cigarettes into the prison where he worked ... More >>

Prison Reform Would Save Missouri Taxpayers Millions, Bipartisan Report Says

​Since 1990, Missouri's spending on inmates has tripled to more than $660 million, and the state's prison population has doubled. While the state's overall general fund has grown by 14 percent over the last decade, the Department of Corrections' budget has grown by 39 percent. For all the spendi ... More >>

Inmates More Likely to Die in Missouri Jails Than in 42* Other States

John Gotti died of throat cancer while incarcerated at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri.​The Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics released a bunch of numbers yesterday offering an exhaustive demographic account of inmates who are dying in p ... More >>

Fair Sentencing Act Expected to Cut Prison Stints of More Than 300 Missourians

​UPDATE WITH INFO FROM EASTERN MISSOURI PROBATION OFFICE The Fair Sentencing Act passed by Congress in 2010 kicked in earlier this week, affecting thousands of inmates who the federal government believes were unjustly sentenced following crack-related offenses. During the 1980s and '90s, a ... More >>

BZP the New Ecstasy? In the Eyes of Federal Judges, Yes

​Let's say you're a drug dealer, but the particular pills you peddle aren't exactly mainstream; in fact they're not even included in the U.S. Sentencing Commission's Drug Quantity Table, even though they're illegal. Now let's say you get busted. How is a judge supposed to sentence you? The ... More >>

Jailbreak Timeline: Suspended Correction Commissioner's Memos Warned of Jails' Vulnerability for Months

Image via"We have a major public safety responsibility and jails can become a dangerous place to live and work without an appropriate managerial staffing pattern," Stubblefield told Bryson in April.​It's easy to understand why Division of Corrections Commissioner Gene Stubblefield wants the public ... More >>

New Allegations Against Corrupt St. Louis Cops

Man claims cops stole his casino winnings and planted drugs on him when he complained.​New allegations have emerged against three former St. Louis police officers sentenced to prison in 2009 on charges of planting evidence and stealing money during drug raids and then covering up their crimes.&nbs ... More >>

Court of Appeals: Prison Employees Aren't Liable for Inmate's Attack

​Let's say an inmate is attacked by fellow inmates wearing masks, then put in an isolated environment for a 30-day period, presumably for protection while the matter is sorted out. The inmate pleads to correctional officers to be kept in protective custody, claiming that his assailants warned ... More >>

Reginald Griffin, Convicted Murderer, Gets Sentence Overturned -- 25 Years Later

It was a different inmate -- with a screwdriver, argued Reginald Griffin. Today, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that he deserves another trial.​Twenty-five years after he was convicted of murdering a fellow inmate in a Missouri prison, Reginald Griffin has gotten a major reprieve from the Missou ... More >>

Twelve Years for a DWI? Too Much, Says Missouri Appellate Court

Twelve years for drunk driving? Not unless you're a "chronic" offender -- and the judge crosses every T, the appeals court finds.​A Jefferson City man wasn't speeding when he got arrested for drunk driving. Nor did he hit anyone (or anything). In fact, he wasn't even, technically, driving. When po ... More >>

Real Estate Broker Sentenced for Scam Targeting Hispanic Community

Jennifer SilverbergSleuthing from attorneys Gustavo Arango (left) and Ken Schmitt led to a trio of real estate brokers' indictments. One of those brokers has now been sentenced to prison.​Christian Joel Juan, one of a trio of real-estate brokers at the center of a housing scam targeting his fellow ... More >>

John Wesley Jones: Mastermind Behind ATM Solutions Robbery Gets 32 Years in Prison

John Wesley Jones has been described as the ringleader of the heist.​Given how he orchestrated the biggest armed robbery in St. Louis history last August -- netting $6.6 million -- and then broke out of jail, leading authorities on a three-day goose chase, we'd have thought that John Wesley Jones ... More >>

Illinois Abolishes Death Penalty = Chris Coleman Staying Earthbound For Now

New law could spare Chris Coleman's life.​Illinois Governor Pat Quinn yesterday signed a bill permanently abolishing the death penalty in his state and commuting the sentences of all thirteen people currently on death row. They now face life in prison without the possibility of parole.The new Illi ... More >>

John Wesley Jones: Guilty Plea Reveals New Details in ATM Solutions Robbery

St. Louis Metropolitan Police DepartmentJohn Wesley Jones​ John Wesley Jones appeared in court this afternoon to enter guilty pleas to armed robbery and related firearms charges in a record money heist last summer in St. Louis. According to court documents, in the early morning of August 2, four ... More >>

Kurtis Neely: Former Track Coach at St. Joseph Academy Pleads Guilty to Soliciting Child Porn

The U.S. Attorney's Office reports that Kurtis W. Neely, a former girls track coach at St. Joseph's Academy in Frontenac, pleaded guilty in court in Kansas City today to attempting to receive child pornography over the Internet. Kurtis, 32, who now resides the western Missouri town of Raymore, admi ... More >>

James Kornhardt and Steven Mueller: Life in Prison in Murder-for-Hire Cold Case

James Kornhardt​Today's news is somewhat anticlimactic. When they were found guilty in June for murder, the charges required that they be sentenced to a minimum of life in prison. Still, today's sentencing of James Kornhardt and Steven Mueller to life prison terms brings final closure to a murder- ... More >>

Alton Teen Sentenced to Six Years for Torturing, Killing Pregnant Woman

Image viaDorothy Dixon​​LeShelle McBride, 18, was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison for her part in the January 2008 torture death of Dorothy Dixon, 29. Five others were also sentenced in the murder, including McBride's mother and 12-year-old brother.Dixon was a developmentally disabled ... More >>

James Kornhardt: Former Mehlville Fighter Convicted in Murder Plot of Danny Coleman

Kornhardt was paid for the murder from the victim's life insurance policy.​Eighteen years after the fact, the family of Danny Harold Coleman finally got some justice. Yesterday a federal jury convicted James K. Kornhardt and Steven A. Mueller of conspiracy to commit murder for hire and murder fo ... More >>

Joseph Miller: Latest Missourian to Be Confined Indefinitely After Serving Prison Sentence

Purgatory or Farmington, Missouri?​Joseph J. Miller isn't going to garner sympathy from most folks, and I'm certainly not defending the man. Still, I think it's curious how people like him can remain incarcerated in Missouri after they've served their so-called "debt to society." As the Missouri A ... More >>

Don C. Weir Locked up at Medium-Security Penitentiary in Illinois, Not Satellite Camp

​Many readers have been asking: Where in the world is Don C. Weir, the Town & Country financial advisor who stole $12 million in precious-metal coin investments from dozens of clients? (Check out our feature, "Plot of Gold"). According to the Bureau of Prisons' inmate locator page, Mr. Weir is ... More >>

Owner of Bar "Club TV One" Now Has Lots of Time To Watch Television -- In Prison

​A Kirkwood resident was sentenced today to 60 months in prison after pleading guilty in October to transporting stolen property and possessing a mere 418 pound of marijuana in his East St. Louis nightclubRobert Williams, 46, ran a nightclub in the Central West End that closed shop in 2008 only to ... More >>

The Justice System is On Crack

Image Via​In the '80s, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin thought he was leading the charge in the war on drugs. He advocated significantly stiffer sentences for possession of crack than for powder cocaine -- to the point that, to this day, it still takes 100 times as much powdered booger sugar to trigg ... More >>

Scary Numbers Part II: Man Has 11 Kids, Gets 13 Years In Jail, For Selling 62.4 Grams of Crack

www.flickr.com/photos/skyzyx​A week ago we crunched the numbers on Christopher Elders, the 30 year-old Affton man who posed as a 17 year-old in order to sodomize a 14 year-old girl. The criminal testing our math skills this time around is Lewis Lawson of East St. Louis. Lawson, 32, was sentenced t ... More >>

Belleville's Fingernail Bandit Gets 28 Years in Prison

staging.ksdk.comTajuan Lampkin​Tajuan Lampkin was sentenced to 28 years in prison yesterday for breaking into the home of 75-year-old woman in Belleville, stealing $20 and forcing her to trim her nails to get rid of evidence. Lampkin, 22, is a serial marauder charged with forcing his way into the ... More >>

South City Real Estate Swinder Pleads Guilty to Fraud

Robert Douglas Hartmann pleaded guilty to bank and mail fraud charges stemming from his now defunct real-estate firm DHP Investments, U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway announced today.Hartmann's DHP Investments was once involved in the rehab of hundreds of homes and buildings in the metro area -- part ... More >>

Sweet Treatment: An experimental program offers rich rewards to drug-addicted ex-cons in St. Louis who keep themselves clean

Floyd Irons' Mortgage Fraud Saga: The End

Floyd Irons' Mortgage Fraud Saga: The End

Cruel and unusual punishment: Malcolm sentences himself to Prison Loaf

Timothy Krajcir: Inside the Mind of a Serial Rapist and Murderer

Guilt-Edged

Pugnacious defense attorney Frank "Tony" Fabbri never backed away from a fight. Then the lawyer ran afoul of the law.

"You're the Greatest, Asshole!"

The Mexican explains a Mex-centric phenomenon.

Barred Bard

Who knew Shakespeare was so good at rehabilitation?

How Does It Feel?

Recent lawsuits puncture the veil of secrecy surrounding lethal injection

Suspended Sentence

After Innocence probes life after a wrongful conviction

Numb and Number

Legal challenges shed light on Missouri's lethal-injection protocols

Life After Death Row

From maximum security in Potosi to a bungalow in Maplewood: The odyssey of Rabbit, a.k.a. Robert Driscoll

Letters

Week of December 29, 2004

Uncomfortably Numb

Lethal injection looks painless and peaceful. On Missouri's death row, appearances can be deceiving.

All the Jail's a Stage

Missouri inmates are performing tales of murder, greed and insanity -- and learning how to leave their old lives behind

Where's Dora?

Former St. Louis corrections chief Dora Schriro has moved on to a more high-profile controversy