Tag: Lane Roberts

Representative, former police chief, proposes tighter stalking laws

      A state representative frustrated by years of having to tell stalking victims he couldn’t help them is sponsoring a bill to toughen Missouri statute.

      Retired Joplin police chief and former Department of Public Safety director Lane Roberts (R-Joplin) says technology has outpaced Missouri law.

Representative Lane Roberts (photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications, 01-29-2020)

      “The use of technology – computers, tracking devices, cell phones – to be able to stalk and terrorize victims has grown exponentially over the last decade and our statute simply does not address it,” said Roberts. 

      “Having to look somebody who’s the victim of stalking in the eye and tell them why you can’t do things to help them out, knowing full well that they’re being terrorized by people, is a pretty uncomfortable and frustrating position,” said Roberts.  “Finally, frankly I’m in a position to maybe do something about it.”

      How Missouri law dealing with orders of protection defines stalking only covers the following of a person or unwanted communication.  Roberts’ proposal, House Bill 292, would broaden it to cover things like the use of cell phones, GPS, cameras, or third parties to observe, threaten, or communicate about or to someone.

      The House Committee on Crime Prevention heard from Janice Thompson Gehrke. She about her experience being harassed by her ex-husband, who is now in prison for shooting his ex-fiancé and her boyfriend.  This included sending his roommate to her workplace multiple times on the pretense of conducting business, having friends monitor her on social media, and using her information to have her phone spammed with contest and prize offers.

      “Now this may not seem like a big deal to some, but when you’re dealing with an abuser like him, you know there is a message being sent:  ‘I am watching you, and short of living your life completely off the grid, you’re not going to get away from me.’”

      She spoke of another victim who is being harassed through threats on social media, but the law does not allow her to seek an order of protection because, as she put it, “it’s not technically him.”

      “What we survivors ask is that you give us as many tools as possible to help set up as many roadblocks [as possible] preventing access to us so we have a chance to escape alive,” said Thompson Gehrke.

      Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence Public Policy Director Jennifer Carter Dochler said her organization backs HB 292.

      “Survivors deserve safety so we must continue to keep pace with the ways offenders find loopholes such as those that are remedied in House Bill 292.  We’re very appreciative of Representative Roberts, who filed this legislation after hearing from constituents the barriers they were experiencing with applying for a stalking order of protection,” said Carter Dochler.  “Our statute needs to be revised to keep up with the technological advances abusers have found to stalk their victims.”

      Roberts has also filed a bill (House Bill 744) that would allow victims to seek a lifetime order of protection against an individual.  Orders of protection are only valid for a year at a time.  That has been referred to a committee.

      He said throughout his career he was frustrated many times that he couldn’t do anything to help a victim of stalking and abuse, but one case frequently comes to mind in which a mother and elementary school-aged child were being abused.

      “It was so outrageous, and this individual was so convinced that because he was a man, it was ‘my way or the highway.’  I think what I said to him probably could be interpreted as a threat,” said Roberts.  “That kind of frustration, I think, exists for every police officer.  Every officer who knows that this victim is depending on them and we’re letting them down.”

      The committee has not voted on HB 292.

Capitol Security an Early Session Priority for House

      An ongoing discussion about security in the Missouri State Capitol continues next week when House committees will hold hearings on two bills.

      One would move control of the Capitol Police from the Department of Public Safety to a new Capitol Police Board, made up of members appointed by the House Speaker, the Senate President Pro Tem, the Governor, the Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, and the chair of the State Capitol Commission.  Another would allow the House Speaker and the Senate President to appoint marshals to provide security and other duties.

Representative Ron Hicks (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications, 05-14-2020)

      House Bill 785, which would create the Capitol Police Board, is sponsored by St. Charles Republican Ron Hicks.  He says legislators and other public officials in the Capitol have no control over the security.

      “Over the years Capitol Police just seems like it’s been kind of a neglected police department.  They’ve been the most underpaid department in, just about in the state,” said Hicks.  “One of the problems we have with it is security.  We’re in the House and the Senate and we do not have control of the security that happens in our building.”

      Former Joplin Police Chief and Director of the Department of Public Safety Lane Roberts (R-Joplin) sponsors House Bill 784, which would create marshals for the House and Senate.  He shares Hicks’ concern that the legislature has no control over Capitol security, and says the agencies responsible for that security are “fragmented.”

      “We have several different law enforcement agencies directed by a number of different entities,” said Roberts.  “Right now the assembly would have to make a request of somebody else and hope that request would be [granted].  This would give the Assembly the ability to determine for itself the level of security that it gets.”

      Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have been concerned about Capitol security for many years.  Lee’s Summit Democrat Keri Ingle is beginning her third year in the House after working in many public buildings in her career dealing with child welfare and adoption.  She said compared to other public facilities, Capitol security is lacking.

      “Right now I would say it’s one of our greatest priorities,” said Ingle.  “As someone who’s worked in crisis situations and someone who’s studied this particular problem, I would say that emergency preparedness is something that we should do outside of a crisis situation … we can’t wait until something happens to start developing a plan for when it happens again.”

      The hearing will come just shy of three weeks after people protesting against the confirmation of the Electoral College Vote that saw Joe Biden become President stormed the U.S. Capitol.  Rumors and threats in recent weeks that some state capitols, including Missouri’s, would be targeted on the day of Biden’s inauguration, led to heightened security.  No such additional attacks occurred.

      All three legislators agree those events highlight the importance of making changes.  Representative Roberts said recent events were something of a “reality check … for people who would like to believe that everybody in the world is actually civilized.  In truth there’s some fairly uncivilized people out there,” said Roberts.  “The reality of where we are was brought home to us in a pretty ugly fashion.”

Representative Lane Roberts (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications, 02-26-2020)

      Hicks said the increased security during the inauguration of Governor Mike Parson (R) and again this week during President Biden’s inauguration highlights one of his main concerns.

      “The point has been proven … [Wednesday there were] probably 50 or so Highway Patrol officers in [the Capitol].  That means there are 50 or so Highway Patrol officers that are not doing what they normally do for us.  That means we’re borrowing.  I’ve noticed, too, the park rangers have been walking around in our building … they don’t even know where they are in that building,” said Hicks.  “There’s a lot of ins and outs in that building that there’s a lot of people don’t understand or even know how it operates or works.  And we don’t want to be borrowing.  What about when the time comes where all this settles back down and we’re all back in the legislature, does [security] all go away again?  It does.”

      Ingle said she has supported Hicks’ legislation in past years, but she and others in her caucus believe a new Capitol Police Board should include two additional members chosen by the minority leaders in each chamber. 

      “It’s really important that all of the members of the House feel that this board is looking out for the best interests of everyone and that we have a say in that as well,” said Ingle.

      Ingle said a “glaring” concern to her and other Democrats is that people can carry firearms into the Capitol. 

Representative Keri Ingle (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications, 04-29-2020)

      “There’s nothing to stop them from entering someone’s office or entering the [chamber] floor.  Obviously we have doormen, but as we were told during a security briefing there’s not really anything to stop someone who’s armed from entering our balconies.  Even though they are not supposed to, they are not checked in any way after they go through that initial security screening when they enter the building,” said Ingle. 

      HB 785 will go before the House Special Committee on Homeland Security, Monday at noon.  A live stream of that hearing will be available here.

      The House Committee on Crime Prevention will hold a hearing on HB 784 at the same time.  That live stream will be available here.

House proposes a chance at parole for certain inmates over 65 serving life

The House has voted to ensure that Missouri inmates who are at least 65 years old get a chance at parole.

Representative Tom Hannegan (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House Bill 352 would apply to a small number of inmates who have served at least 30 years of a sentence, who have no prior violent felony convictions, are not convicted sex offenders, and are serving a sentence of life without parole with a 50-year minimum.

St. Charles Republican Tom Hannegan sponsors the bill.  He said that sentence was replaced with a 30-year minimum in the 1980s.

“We are trying to give these folks, who have become elderly in prison and are a burden on the Missouri department of justice health system, the same opportunity for parole that they would’ve had if they had committed their crimes a few years after they were convicted,” said Hannegan.

Democrats strongly supported the bill.  Representative Barbara Washington (D-Kansas City) said just as modern DNA has proven some people innocent in old cases, this legislation reflects how the state’s law has changed to eliminate overly harsh prison terms.

“This is an opportunity to correct some of the miscarriage of justice that we’ve had in the past,” said Washington.

Some Republicans opposed the bill, saying the victims of the crimes committed by the inmates this bill would affect deserve justice by having the original sentences carried out.

Carl Junction representative Bob Bromley (R) said a high school friend of his was murdered, as was the sister of a friend of his.  He reached out to relatives of both of those victims about HB 352.

“They are adamantly opposed to this because they believe we are re-litigating what has already been litigated in the past.  They believe that they have a written contract with the judicial system and also with the State of Missouri that these people were going to be put away for life,” said Bromley.

Former Joplin Police Chief Lane Roberts (R-Joplin) said sentences of life without parole are often offered as an alternative to the death sentence in particularly egregious crimes.  That is generally after the victim’s family has agreed to accept that as an outcome.

“When someone is sentenced under a statute that says, ‘Life without parole means a 50-year minimum,’ that’s the promise that we made to the family at the time,” said Roberts.  “The promise doesn’t change just because our philosophy changes.”

“Whenever we take today’s philosophy and apply it to yesterday’s conduct, somehow the victims fade into the landscape like they never existed,” said Roberts.

Hannegan said the bill wouldn’t fly in the face of past sentences.

“The [legislature] has already made the change in the sentencing law.  Therefore this is not breaking a contract with the jury, but rather allowing equivalent sentencing across the board,” said Hannegan.

Representative Lane Roberts (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Representative Steve Butz’s (D-St. Louis) sister was raped and murdered about 10 years ago in Washington State.  He described to his colleagues having to identify her body, having to wait several days before her body was released to be buried, and going through the court trial.

He said her killer is serving the same kind of sentence as the people this bill would affect.

“Our family, consistent with our [belief that] ‘every life is important,’ we requested that this perpetrator not be given the death penalty, and he was not.  My mother, my father, and all 10 of the surviving siblings testified to that case,” said Butz.

He said forgiveness is key for a family to heal.

“With all the other requirements that this inmate in this case would have to meet, it’s for those reasons that I urge the body to support this bill,” said Butz.  “It’s great to be merciful.”

HB 352 is part of a larger, overall focus on criminal justice reform that is a bipartisan priority this year.  Its language has been included in a broad reform package, House Committee Bill 2.  That bill is still before a House committee.

An inmate receiving a parole hearing under this bill must be found by the parole board to have met certain criteria to be eligible for parole.  He or she must have a record of good conduct while in prison; must have demonstrated rehabilitation; must have an institutional risk factor score of no more than one and a mental health score of no more than three; and must have a workable parole plan that includes the support of family and community.

An offender who is not granted parole would be reconsidered every two years.

With a vote of 90-60, HB 352 now goes to the Senate for its consideration.