WaPo | The Missouri Supreme Court announced Monday it was placing a state
judge in charge of cases in Ferguson, Mo., a decision that came after the Justice Department lambasted the city’s municipal court system as harmful and aimed only at boosting revenue.
Meanwhile,
the city’s municipal judge, Ronald J. Brockmeyer, who was criticized in
the Justice Department’s report for creating court fees that were
described as “abusive and may be unlawful,” said in a statement that he
had resigned his post.
Judge Roy L. Richter of the Eastern
District of the Missouri Court of Appeals will be moved to the St. Louis
County circuit court and he will be assigned all of Ferguson’s pending
and future municipal cases, the state Supreme Court said.
The
transfer order, signed by Missouri Chief Justice Mary R. Russell and
approved by the full court, goes into effect on Monday and will remain
until the court issues another order. It grants Richter, a St. Louis
native, the ability to change the court’s policies and procedures and to
“restore the integrity of the system.”
“Judge Richter will bring
a fresh, disinterested perspective to this court’s practices and he is
able and willing to implement needed reforms,” Russell said in a
statement Monday.
To help Richter with this process, the state
Supreme Court was also moving staff members from the state court
administrator’s office to help review Ferguson’s court practices. The
Justice Department made multiple recommendations
for reforming the court system there, even as investigators noted
that they found many people who had encountered problems with heavy
fines from multiple courts in the region.
“Extraordinary action
is warranted in Ferguson, but the Court also is examining reforms that
are needed on a statewide basis,” Russell said.
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