By Kyle Loethen (Missourinet) – A new director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety has been sworn in.

Former Joplin Chief of Police Lane Roberts was sworn in at the Missouri Law Enforcement Memorial outside of the State Capitol Wednesday. Roberts takes over for Daniel Isom, who served for only six months before announcing his resignation.

Roberts, who has over 40 years of experience in law enforcement, said it was an honor to have the opportunity to serve the citizens of Missouri.

“Working in law enforcement public safety is more than a career, it’s a commitment to protect and a calling to serve,” said Roberts. “This memorial is a constant reminder of the dedication of those who have paid the ultimate price for selflessly serving the people of Missouri.”

Governor Jay Nixon introduced Roberts and thanked the Senate for confirming his nomination last week. Nixon said he is confident in Roberts’ leadership abilities after spending time with him during response to the Joplin tornado four years ago.

“It was on his watch, after one of the deadliest single tornados to hit our country leveled much his city and took 161 lives, that the citizens of Joplin could fully appreciate the character, compassion, and courage of Chief Lane Roberts,” said Nixon. “In those times, you developed a level of trust and a level of commitment that was based on your word and professionalism, and on each of those counts, Lane has been a leader his entire life.”

Roberts said members of more than 400 law enforcement and public safety agencies raced to his community in their hour of need.

“In the most trying time for my neighbors, my officers, and for me personally, Missouri’s public safety community bolstered our ranks, strengthened our resolve, and helped lay the foundation for Joplin’s incredible recovery,” said Roberts.

Roberts played a role in the response to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens early in his career. Roberts said he laso dealt with large forest fires and floods while working in Washington.

“I learned a great deal about how people go about collaborating with one another and the need for people to stay on their mission task, so that things work in cooperation instead of sometimes in conflict with each other,” said Roberts.

Roberts said one of his top priorities as director is establishing trust between the community and law enforcement, particularly in Ferguson.

“I want to move forward and think about the future in how we go about making things better for Missourians, and we’ll learn from the lessons of the past,” said Roberts.

Roberts was sworn in by Boone County Associate Circuit Judge Michael Bradley.

By Mike Lear (Missourinet) – The Missouri legislature has sent Governor Jay Nixon a bill to limit awards for pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases.

By Mike Lear (Missourinet)-The Missouri legislature has proposed shortening the length of time a person can stay on unemployment benefits by tying that limit to the unemployment rate.

The plan would allow unemployment benefits for up to 20 weeks when the average unemployment rate is nine percent or higher, to as few as 13 weeks when the rate drops below six percent.

Backers say the bill is needed to bolster the state’s unemployment fund, that has become insolvent during recent downturns in the economy.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce backed the bill through its path to the governor’s desk.

“Following the last recession, Missouri’s unemployment insurance system became insolvent and had to borrow money from the federal government to cover claims, and employers paid millions in interest alone on the borrowed funds,” Chamber president Dan Mehan said.

He said Missouri is the only state that has had to borrow funds from the federal government to cover benefits to unemployed workers in the past five economic downturns.

“We need to take steps to keep the fund from chronic insolvency. This bill does that,” said Mehan.

Opponents like Representative Sheila Solon (R-Blue Springs) said the bill would make it harder for people who have lost a job to make ends meet or get an education toward a new career.

“Unemployment insurance is not welfare. It’s insurance. It provides help to people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own to cover the gap until they can find a job,” said Solon. “It helps put gas in their car, food on the table, and it helps pay the rent or their mortgage so they don’t lose their home.”

The state Senate amended the bill to include severance and termination pay in the definition of wages. The result would be that a person would not start receiving unemployment benefits until after severance or termination pay runs out.

House Democrat leader Jake Hummel (D-St. Louis) argued that would hurt a person’s ability to change professions after being laid off.

“When these people get laid off what they’re doing is they’re taking these packages, these payouts, they’re going to school, and learning a new skill,” said Hummel. “It seems like we’re pulling the rug out from under them at a time when they need it most.”
The House passed the original bill 112-47 in February, but the version with the Senate amendments received only 88 “yes” votes. Its House sponsor, Representative Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) says he thinks the difference in vote totals is a result of the amendment adding severance and termination pay to the definition of wages.

“I think it was probably the amendment that Senator (Mike) Kehoe added that got some folks in the organized labor community concerned and they started contacting people on this side of the building, and that, I think, resulted in a lower vote total.”

The second House vote is 21 short of the total supporters would need to overturn a veto by Governor Jay Nixon (D) if that is the action he takes on the bill.

The Senate passed the bill 21-8.

By Mike Lear

(Missourinet)-  Proposals moving in the state legislature would finally allow victims of sexual assault or rape in Missouri to get orders of protection from their attackers.

A House committee has approved several additions to a bill sponsored by Senator Jeanie Riddle (R-Mokane) that would allow the state to intervene when a juvenile sexually abuses another juvenile … something for which there is no system now.
One of those additions deals with an omission in the state law that created orders of protection.

“Missouri’s orders of protection since 1980 have not allowed a rape victim or a sexual assault victim to get an order of protection,” explained Colleen Coble, Chief Executive Officer with the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. “It’s always been limited to domestic violence and to stalking victims.”

She said the change would address a “major hole in our laws.”

Coble told a House committee between 870 and 1,000 rape victims receive help in Missouri programs in a year, and that number is likely to grow.

“Rape is the most underreported of all crimes, and hopefully this will help aid people come forward to seek help because the remedy is available,” Coble told Missourinet.

Coble says it’s a good question to wonder why victims of such crimes were omitted in the original law.

“I think there were concerns by different groups based on a lack of understanding that this isn’t something that is alleged lightly, and I think it’s a good sign that those days have passed in terms of what goes on in the state capitol,” said Coble, “and how that reflects a different understanding by Missourians of all kinds that rape is rape, it is serious, and it’s certainly where we can all come together and agree that whatever it is we can do to prevent it and to aid those who have been victims in their journey to being survivors, we should do it.”

Coble says many lawmakers, upon being presented with the issue, have expressed surprise at learning victims of sexual assault and domestic violence can’t get an order of protection.

The language on Tuesday was passed out of the state Senate in a bill sponsored by Senator Dan Hegeman (R-Cosby) and out of the House Committee on Children and Families, having been added to Riddle’s bill. No member of either of those bodies voted against it.

By Kyle Loethen

(Missourinet) – A University of Missouri journalism professor wants more transparency in Missouri’s execution process.

The identities of those who carry out executions are protected by law in states that allow capital punishment, but many states also have laws protecting the identities of the makers of lethal injection drugs. Professor Sandra Davidson says these laws prevent transparency and Missouri is not alone.

“This umbrella of secrecy has been broaden, so that also now in Missouri, it is being interpreted as including the source of execution drugs,” said Davidson.

The State of Missouri says that law also covers the identity of the makers of its lethal injection drugs because they are part of the “execution team.”  Davidson said doctors and anesthesiologists are not taking part in executions, and many pharmacists are also considering it to be a violation of ethics to take part in the process.

Davidson said she understands why executioners’ identities are kept private, but argues protecting the identities of execution drug makers is extending the umbrella of secrecy too far.

“I would like to see more transparency in the system, I would like to see the public know where these drugs are coming from,” said Davidson.  “The problem is one of public oversight.  These executions are done in the name of all of us, but yet we have no transparency in the system.”

Davidson said Missouri has not had a track record of botched executions, but reports in other states have been made public about lethal injections taking too long to work.  Davidson said these kinds of executions could be classified as cruel and unusual punishments, but the public does not know for sure because the information about how those drugs work is kept private.

Davidson said Missouri, like many other death penalty states, has altered its lethal injection protocol because of a nationwide shortage of execution drugs.

“More and more states are having to turn to compounding pharmacies, which are not as heavily regulated as regular pharmacies by the FDA,” said Davidson.  “So, the question becomes where are these drugs coming from, and also then, what about their efficacy?”

Davidson said the hope might have been that lethal injection would be more humane, but examples of botched executions in other states leave that in doubt.  There have been multiple suggestions made as to how Missouri should change its execution process to get around the problems with execution drugs.  One Missouri lawmaker has proposed the use of firing squads.  Attorney General Chris Koster has suggested the state manufacture its own execution drugs or return to using lethal gas.

Missourinet reached out the Governor Jay Nixon’s office for comment, but it declined.  Missouri Department of Corrections Communications Director David Owen also declined comment and only cited Missouri law, which says “any portion of a record containing identifying information related to a member of the execution team is privileged and not subject to discovery, subpoena, or other means of legal compulsion, or subject to disclosure.”

TOPEKA, KAN. – A Topeka man was sentenced Monday to a month in federal prison and ordered to pay $38,000 in restitution to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said.

Terry Gene Hummer, 64, Topeka, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. In his plea, he admitted he obtained loans from USDA Rural Development for developing housing in rural areas. He provided false information to Rural Development representing there were substantial funds on deposit in reserve accounts when in fact he had converted most of those funds for his own use. In one instance in 2009, he made false representations that a reserve account contained $29,526 when in fact there was only 69 cents in the account.

A Kingdom City, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court Tuesday for robbing an employee at the Kingdom City post office.

Lucas Wayne Branstetter, 39, of Kingdom City, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough to seven years in federal prison without parole. Branstetter was sentenced as a career offender due to his prior felony convictions.

On Sept. 18, 2014, Branstetter pleaded guilty to robbing a postal employee. Branstetter entered a postal facility in Kingdom City on July 19, 2014, and presented a note to a postal employee that stated, “This is a robbery.” The postal employee placed $310 from the cash drawer into Branstetter’s backpack and he drove away from the post office on a motorcycle.

According to court documents, Branstetter was identified by a confidential source on July 21, 2014. On the same day, Branstetter was arrested for possessing stolen property after Laclede County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department deputies responded to a call regarding a suspicious person sleeping behind a local church. A stolen motorcycle was also parked behind the church. Branstetter had an active arrest warrant for forgery from the Blue Springs, Mo., Police Department.

Branstetter has been convicted of at least 12 felonies, including four prior felony convictions for burglary and a prior felony conviction for robbery, as well as numerous misdemeanors.

A Jefferson City, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court Monday for illegally possessing a firearm.

Robert Fount Mahan, 34, of Jefferson City, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips to 10 years in federal prison without parole.

On Dec. 30, 2014, Mahan pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Mahan was traveling westbound on U.S. 54 Highway on Oct. 25, 2012, when a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper attempted a vehicle stop on the Old Bass Road crossover due to Mahan’s suspicious behavior and the license plate on Mahan’s vehicle being reported as not on file. Mahan instead led the trooper in a vehicle pursuit that reached speeds of 75 to 80 miles per hour on Old Bass Road. Mahan’s vehicle crossed the center line on several occasions. Mahan’s vehicle struck an embankment and crashed into a fence near the Hunter Run intersection. Mahan ran from the vehicle but was apprehended. Troopers found a loaded Hi Point .45-caliber pistol in the vehicle’s center console.

Under federal law, it is illegal for anyone who has been convicted of a felony to be in possession of any firearm or ammunition. Mahan has three prior felony convictions for domestic assault and a prior felony conviction for possession of a controlled substance.

Co-defendant Danielle Christine Orcutt, 33, of Jefferson City, was also sentenced today to one year and one day in federal prison without parole.

Orcutt, who was Mahan’s girlfriend, pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to tamper with evidence so that it could not be used in Mahan’s prosecution. Orcutt admitted that she had twice visited the location where Mahan’s vehicle crashed in search of a purple cloth bag containing methamphetamine. However, troopers had already located the bag prior to Orcutt’s search.

Co-defendant Kenneth Dale Witherell, 28, of Barnett, Mo., was sentenced on March 3, 2015, to three years and six months in federal prison without parole. Witherell pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and to being a felon in possession of a firearm.

A Missouri man was sentenced in federal court Monday for receiving child pornography after he assumed a false online identity as a woman and persuaded a teenage girl in Georgia to send him pornographic images of herself.

Curtis Bowman, 43, of Nevada, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to 12 years in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Bowman to serve a life term of supervised release following his incarceration, and to pay $12,140 in restitution to his victim.

Bowman pleaded guilty on Oct. 15, 2014, to receiving child pornography over the Internet.

Law enforcement officers in Cobb County, Ga., were contacted by the victim’s mother. She told officers that her 16-year-old daughter, identified as ”Jane Doe,” had been engaged in sexually explicit e-mail communications with an individual identifying herself as “Amanda Toben.” Jane Doe confirmed that she met “Amanda Toben,” whom she believed was a female resident of Missouri, in an online chat room sometime in January 2014. They began exchanging e-mails and within a matter of days, the e-mail exchanges became sexual in nature. Jane Doe ultimately sent a number of images depicting herself engaged in sexually explicit conduct to “Toben.”

Georgia law enforcement officers identified Bowman and on March 7, 2014, local law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Bowman’s residence, where he was arrested. Investigators discovered a number of sexually explicit images of Jane Doe on Bowman’s computer.

Although the age of consent in the state of Georgia is 16 years of age, the federal government deems the age of consent to be 18 years of age. Therefore, receiving sexually explicit images of a 16-year-old minor over the Internet is a violation of federal law.