Subject: Missouri Supreme Court

• High Court Agrees: Parkus Is Too Dim to Die

  April 19, 2007

• Happy Birthday, Madame

  June 6, 2007

• KCPD considering collective bargaining

  Kansas City Police Department Captain Rich Lockhart confirms that, in March, officers will cast secret ballots to determine whether the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #99, will become the department's union representation.Lockhart says the FOP has been pushing the department to become unionized for years, but only recently got traction when a Missouri Supreme Court decision overturned a previous ruling that had barred Missouri schoolteachers, firefighters and police from unionizing.As a union,

  February 2, 2009

• Downtown wig shop loses court appeal

  Luke EchterlingThe owners of Gigi's Wigs and Beauty Supplies -- one of the few small businesses in downtown Kansas City's South Loop to avoid the wrecking ball -- have lost an appeal of the city's decision to condemn their building. The Kansas City Tax-Increment Financing Commission offered the shop's owners, Chung Hoe Ku and his wife, Myong Suk Ku, $335,000 for their land in 2004. The TIF Commission sought the property in order to accommodate Copaken White & Blitt, a company that manages To

  February 20, 2009

• Air Supply

  February 1, 2007

• Letters from the week of February 15

  February 15, 2007

• It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere

  September 11, 2008

• Chris Koster election analysis: Cynicism and good hair win

  August 14, 2008

• An All-Amateur Vote

  We drag the river for stuff you didn't know you were missing.

  April 13, 2006

• Double Trouble

  December 8, 2005

• Too Dim to Die?

  Nadia Pflaum

  November 10, 2005

• Blood Simple

  Killing a retarded inmate isn’t that hard — not if you have a cooperative psychiatrist.

  June 9, 2005

• Show Me Schiavo!

  Missouri distinguishes itself on the national stage.

  March 31, 2005

• Scoff Law

  A career criminal makes a joke out of the local courts. But this time, he’s gunning for real time.

  January 13, 2005

• Miracle in a Bottle

  Dr. Edward McDonagh has been fighting Missouri’s medical establishment for years — and treating lots of happy customers.

  November 25, 2004

• Queer Bait

  Dems expect the gay vote — so why don’t they earn it?

  June 17, 2004

• Mother Superior Court

  The Kansas City Catholic Diocese finds itself fighting a slew of new lawsuits over abuse of parishioners all filed by one determined lawyer.

  October 16, 2003

• King of Pain

  Despite effort to reign him in, Paul Silverman has spent decades ruling Kansas City's notorious payday-loan industry.

  September 18, 2003

• A Fines Mess

  A state court says an owner can let his downtown building rot.

  February 20, 2003

• Little Blight Lies

  Seeking tax kickbacks, developers trash the city with blight studies.

  July 11, 2002

• So Long, Joe

  While Joe Armine waits to die, Missouri courts won't admit they could have been wrong.

  July 4, 2002

• The Pork Authority

  Mike Burke develops a client list.

  March 7, 2002

• Devine Debauchery

  Seeking sanctuary for a rocky marriage, Saundra McFadden-Weaver landed in a church's sex trap.

  June 7, 2001

• Lite Guard

  Don't expect help from Ward Parkway mall's security.

  May 24, 2001

• Night & Day Events

  Week of March 29, 2001

  March 29, 2001

• Cold Truth

  John Ashcroft makes Missouri feel frozen in time.

  January 25, 2001

• Fluoride Fighters

  Age differences don't matter in Jereme Dillard and Frances Frech's passion against fluoride.

  July 20, 2000

• Nowhere to Hide

  For seven years Tisha Jackson tried to stop her stalker, and the law didn't help. She wants a new law.

  July 13, 2000

• Urban Cowboy

  Can a high school dropout with no law enforcement training run for Jackson County Sheriff? County officials say no.

  June 8, 2000

• Firefighter learns that Sunshine Law enforcement remains weak

  A Camden Point firefighter's request for public records from his fire protection district is a struggle that typifies many citizens' battles for open government.

  May 4, 2000

• The Men to Call

  Charged with a serious crime? Low on funds? Kent Gipson and Sean O'Brien are the guys to call.

  April 27, 2000

• Remaking a Truant into a Con

  In 1963, a group of African-American runaways and truants was sent to a rural reform school. Then the nightmare began.

  March 23, 2000

• Dennis Skillicorn could be Missouri's first execution since 2005

  Capital attorneys with the Public Interest Litigation Clinic say they expect the Missouri Supreme Court to announce an execution date for Dennis Skillicorn, a 49-year-old inmate at the Potosi Correctional Center, of May 20, 2009. Skillicorn's previous execution date, August 27, 2008, was stayed after Skillicorn asserted that Potosi's warden was interfering with his council's attempts to interview prison staff in order to present a thorough request for clemency to the governor.Skillicorn and Alle

  April 20, 2009

• Missouri is about to execute Dennis Skillicorn. The state’s death penalty may not outlive him very long.

  May 14, 2009

• Reporter's Notebook: Skillicorn and the Mexico murder

  Dennis Skillicorn, courtesy of Paula SkillicornWhen Dennis Skillicorn was picked up by California Highway Patrol and turned over to the FBI, he was pretty fried. On the run, he'd spent weeks with little food, even less sleep, and God knows how much meth. Meth, he explained to me during our prison interview at Potosi, can turn reality into a paranoid, shape-shifting nightmare. "It will literally have you shooting the neighbor's cat because you think he might have a radio transmitter in his collar

  May 14, 2009

• Who gets clemency in Missouri?

  Courtesy of Missouri Department of CorrectionsDennis Skillicorn has been working his butt off to repay society for the debts of his crimes. But the last death row inmate to be granted clemency in Missouri didn't have to do anything at all -- he was spared thanks to divine intervention.Darrell Mease was on death row for a brutal triple homicide he committed in 1988. He'd staked out the road leading to the home of Lloyd Lawrence, his mentor in the meth-manufacturing business, and killed Lawrence,

  May 15, 2009

• Dennis Skillicorn is dead, but the Public Interest Litigation Clinic is still very much alive

  Jennifer Merrigan Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon never called Dennis Skillicorn's lawyer at the Public Interest Litigation Clinic to say that he'd denied Skillicorn's petition for clemency. Scott Holste, the governor's press secretary, wrote up a press release that was sent to media outlets shortly after 5 p.m. yesterday, but nobody notified Jennifer Merrigan, Skillicorn's lawyer. As a result, Skillicorn himself didn't find out that he was denied clemency until after Merrigan read it on the The Kansas

  May 20, 2009

• Hard Line

  May 28, 2009

• Reginald Clemons gets to live a little longer

  Reginald ClemonsMissouri just pushed the "pause" button on executing any more prisoners, which is all too late for Dennis Skillicorn. The Missouri Supreme Court isn't booking any more executions since the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals slapped a federal stay on Reginald Clemons' date with the needle (Clemons' attorneys challenged Missouri's legal injection procedures to be sure executions are pain-free)."We're back on hold," incoming Chief Justice William Price Jr. told the Associated Press.

  June 24, 2009

• KC can keep banning smoking in bars and restaurants

  The Missouri Court of Appeals gave Kansas City the "OK" to keep banning smoking in bars and restaurants. On Tuesday, the court upheld the smoking ban, which voters passed in April 2008. But the fight's not over, yet. This morning's Kansas City Star story says opponents, namely Bill Nigro of the Kansas City Business Rights Coalition, plan to appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. So it'll be a a while before Buzzard Beach can reclaim its title of "Smokiest Bar in Kansas City." (photo by Jay S

  June 24, 2009

• Dennis Skillicorn's widow reacts to the halting of Missouri executions

  Just a little over a month after the state ended the life of Dennis Skillicorn by lethal injection, executions are again on hold in Missouri. Incoming Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice William Ray Price Jr. told the The Associated Press yesterday that he didn't expect the Court to schedule any executions while the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals weighs an appeal on behalf of death row inmate Reginald Clemons that questions the constitutionality of Missouri's lethal injection protocol.The st

  June 25, 2009

• JC's bartender still fighting for Kansas Citian's right to smoke in bars

  ​Kansas City, your champion of cancer sticks is a bartender at JC's Sports Bar. The Star reports that the bartender is trying to take its smoking ban challenge to the Missouri Supreme Court, but will the appeal get the lucky golden ticket to go before the high court? Intrigue! Mystery! The answer won't come until fall, and by then, we'll only care about watching football in bars.

  August 11, 2009

• Freed after 24 years of false imprisonment, Darryl Burton forgives you

  September 24, 2009

• Potential hotel site has churned with litigation

  This week's Martin column notes the similarities in the arguments for a new convention hotel and past discussions that led to unprofitable investments in Bartle Hall and other tourism bubbles.The oft-contested surface lot near 12th and Broadway​One of the sites that's being contemplated for a new hotel sits west of Bartle Hall and south of 12th Street. The property is not much to look at -- surface parking lots rarely are -- but it has a tumultuous history.A California-based investor named All

  October 16, 2009