By David A. Lieb
Associated Press
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The lines separating government powers have been blurred among Ferguson’s court staff, police and prosecutor, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest, according to a report released by Missouri’s judiciary.
The state report examining Ferguson’s municipal court system comes as a follow-up to a highly critical U.S. Justice Department report released earlier this year, which asserted that the city’s police and courts had been used as a revenue-generating machine.
After the federal review, the Missouri Supreme Court in March appointed appeals Judge Roy Richter to take over the Ferguson court and asked court administration experts to take a look at how things were working.
The new report summarizes the observations and recommendations of those unnamed experts, noting several potential conflicts of interest that caused concern.
Until very recently, the report said, court staff were required to report to the police chief. That structure “potentially compromises the separation our government is to have” between the judicial and executive branches, the report said.
Ferguson has since shifted the supervision of clerk staff to the city finance director. But the report said that also poses a potential conflict of interest, because the financial chief is part of the executive branch and “could place undue pressure on the clerk staff ... to focus on revenue rather than fairness and due process of law.”
The report said Ferguson appears to have violated the Supreme Court’s procedural rules by having police file a citation — and court staff open a file — before a prosecutor reviews the case.
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