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St. Louis Jail Blocks Attorneys From Hand-Delivering Paper to Clients

Published

1 year ago

April 18, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The St. Louis jail has found yet another way to interfere with the work of attorneys who have clients locked up inside.

The latest policy implemented by administrators at the City Justice Center is one that lawyers say unnecessarily complicates their efforts to deliver legal documents to clients inside the troubled facility. It concerns the “paper pass,” a narrow opening in the booths where attorneys speak to clients through glass.

The pass allows a few sheets of paper to be transferred back and forth. Or at least it does if it can be opened. For the past few weeks, it’s been locked.

“If you need someone to sign a document, how do you do that?” says defense attorney Terry Niehoff.

The paper pass policy, which appears to have taken effect April 1, comes on the heels of the jail putting new prohibitions on lawyers bringing phones into the facility, a move that some lawyers believe was retaliation for them going public with concerns.

Attorney Susan McGraugh says she first noticed a sign announcing the paper pass policy on Monday. Because she wasn’t able to bring her phone in to snap a photo of it, she jotted it down verbatim.

“Any documentation for detainees must be left at the reception desk to provide to the detainee,” it reads. “The paper pass will not be opened for any reason.”

The notice, signed by St. Louis Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah, went on to say that if the reception desk wasn’t staffed, paperwork for detainees could be left in a dropbox.

McGraugh says she has real concerns about such an indirect method of getting legal documents to her clients in the jail.

Among them is the fact that a lot of times multiple people charged in connection to the same case are in jail together. One detainee may be testifying against another, and the wrong eyes seeing paperwork outing a person turning state’s witness could put their safety in jeopardy.

“I have concerns about the confidentiality of just leaving documents and trusting that my clients are going to get them and no one else is going to open it,” she says.

McGraugh adds there are more fundamental issues as well. “I have clients who are illiterate,” she says. “And if I just hand them something, they’re not going to be able to decipher it.”

A statement by Department of Public Safety Monte Chambers explains the administration’s thinking: “Cell phones were prohibited by anyone, including attorneys, inside secured areas inside of the City Justice Center in January 2024. However, after a petition was presented to the Board of Alderman Public Safety Committee, a compromise was reached that allowed attorneys to have cell phones while meeting with clients beginning April 1, 2024.

“However, to maintain stringent security measures against contraband, which can include items as varied as unauthorized electronic devices and substances such as K2, the passing of physical papers between attorneys and their clients during visits remains prohibited. The Division of Corrections remains committed to the safety and security of all detainees inside of CJC.”

McGraugh balks at that explanation. She says the “paper pass” is the width of about five sheets of paper.

“You cannot fit a telephone or electronics through that slot. It’s very, very thin,” she says.

Attorney Nick Zotos says that under this new rule, he can’t even pass a client his business card to give them his phone number.

“Someone had the idea this would solve a problem rather than create a problem,” he says.

Zotos says that paper can be handed back and forth at what are called full contact visits, when detainees and their attorneys are able to meet in a room together. But these types of visits take longer to arrange. They’re also more subject to jail staffing, long an issue at the facility and likely only to get worse with budget cuts headed the jail’s way.

“They can’t do the job they’re supposed to do,” Zotos says of jail operations writ large.

His comment is reflective of the increasingly heated relationship between the jail administration and the attorneys who need access to the facility to do their jobs. In the past several months, attorneys have been so alarmed by what’s going on in the jail they’ve skirted policy to go public with evidence of detainee neglect. In response, the jail has doubled down on its prohibitions and censoriousness.

In January, after an attorney shared a photo of a detainee with an untreated hernia that had swelled to the size of a cantaloupe, the jail banned lawyers from bringing in phones. (Those restrictions have since been eased, to an extent.) Earlier this month, attorney phones were banned in a separate area of the jail directly connected to the courts after McGraugh shared with the media a photo of a detainee lying in his own excrement there.

Zotos blasts the jail administrators’ reaction. Rather than own up to the fact they aren’t taking good care of detainees, Zotos says they just “blame Susan for taking the photo.”

As for the paper policy, all three attorneys whom the RFT spoke to for this story were adamant that the work around suggested by the jail — leaving court documents with the reception desk — was no workaround at all.

“You can leave paperwork at the front desk,” Niehoff says. “But the Justice Center is run by the expletive-deleted, expletive-deleted laziest asses you’ve ever met. So who knows when it’s getting in.”

We reminded Niehoff this is an alt-weekly and we could print the profanity.

He said to leave it as is.

“I want people to pick their own expletives,” he says. “Any one they choose will be right.”

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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