When drugs in marked Fayette Police Department evidence bags ended up in a public dumpster December 2023, Fayette citizens raised questions about how the incident lined up with Missouri law.
Most law enforcement agencies create their own policies for evidence disposal and storage, sometimes based on models from other departments in their state or policy institutes. These policies often differ across departments, but in Missouri, there are certain procedures that are legally required to be part of the process.
Missouri statute 542.301 governs certain law enforcement operations. It lays out rules for how law enforcement is supposed to handle material that’s seized by the police, including drugs.
Anders Walker, a law professor at St. Louis University, said one part of the statute lays out how law enforcement agencies are supposed to get approval from a judge to dispose of drug evidence when they decide they no longer need it.
"Missouri law covers the destruction of evidence. Evidence could be relevant to cases that are ongoing or future cases," Walker said. "So, the law says that to destroy evidence, local law enforcement needs to contact the local prosecuting attorney to get a court order."
He said one reason is to ensure evidence that is seized locally isn’t connected to other cases. Small police departments, such as Fayette, mostly seize small amounts of narcotics that may not appear significant enough to connect to larger offenses, such as drug trafficking. However, Walker said that’s not always the case.
"Evidence might be relevant — not only to the local police department — but to the FBI, the state troopers, the Attorney General, other jurisdictions who might be investigating a related case," Walker said. "And so, before some local person starts destroying evidence, a judge has got to review the file to make sure this case is closed."
Multiple public records searches and Sunshine Requests submitted by KBIA to the 14th Judicial Circuit Court, which serves Fayette, found no court orders issued to the Fayette Police Department for disposal of evidence before the evidence discovered in December was disposed of.
If Fayette police did violate the statute, it wouldn’t be the first time it happened in Missouri. In 2001, a sheriff in Miller County was found to have disposed of police evidence without a court order.
"Local law enforcement officials, local city councils are dealing with local problems and may never realize, 'oh, there could be more to the story, the federal government might show up and knock on your door.'"Anders Walker
In that case, the state attorney general used a different law to remove the Sheriff from office for "dereliction of duty," which is when an elected official neglects or violates their duties.
Walker said this creates legal precedent that could give the state of Missouri grounds to pursue a similar case against the Fayette Police Department for not getting a court order.
Beyond the potential legal ramifications, he said it’s especially important for judges to review drug evidence before it’s thrown out to ensure it’s not involved with larger drug trades.
"Sometimes there are federal investigations trying to get not just local dealers or users but chains of distribution, cartels," Walker said. "If say, narcotics are being transported through Missouri — which law enforcement has long suspected happens along (Interstates) 44, 55 — you can't just throw it out."
Walker said that in some cases, local agencies aren’t aware of this.
"This happens all the time," Walker said. "Local law enforcement officials, local city councils are dealing with local problems and may never realize, 'oh, there could be more to the story, the federal government might show up and knock on your door.'"
It’s for that reason, he said, that judges, not just prosecutors, must review all drug evidence before disposal, regardless of the outcome of a case or whether charges were brought in the first place.
A new policy
When the drugs were found in the dumpster in December, the Fayette police cited an evidence disposal policy, however, a records request by KBIA to the city of Fayette for that policy revealed that no official policy ever existed.
Fayette Police Department has since created a policy with the city of Fayette, but it only goes as far as prosecutor review and is only required in cases where a trial took place.
According to the policy, evidence connected to unfiled cases or plea deals only needs to be reviewed by the chief of police before it’s disposed of. Fayette city attorney Nathan Nickolaus said that "it would be just the prosecutor” who reviews evidence, and evidence in cases that don’t carry any charges would only require “a verbal yes, go ahead” from the prosecutor before being disposed of.
When there is a charge in a case, the prosecutor has to do a review to decide if the case is over, and the evidence is no longer needed.
"Evidence that has been used in a trial or would have been used in a trial — that, you’d need to get the court order for," Nickolaus said about the policy. "When there never was a trial and nobody was ever charged, you would not need a court order for that."
But Walker said that, in his opinion, this policy still doesn’t completely line up with Missouri law. According to him, court orders are needed for all types of drug evidence, including evidence that was never used in a trial.
"The DEA might be investigating a cartel and this dealer might be part of the cartel," Walker said. "And before you just destroy the evidence because there was a plea deal, I think you still need a court order."
One thing that is a part of Fayette’s new evidence disposal policy is safe disposal via incineration, but it’s still something Missouri law hasn’t addressed yet.
This is concerning to Fayette resident and Missouri House of Representatives candidate Joe Jefferies.
"There's not a whole lot of specifics about how do we safely dispose of this, how does this work," Jefferies said. "Making sure that those substances are always disposed of in the least harmful way to our communities and to our environments as possible, is really, really important."
But roughly six months after drug evidence ended up in a public dumpster, Nickolaus said Fayette police still can’t access an incinerator.
In part three of The Weight of Evidence, we'll look closer at how law enforcement agencies in Missouri and beyond access safe methods for disposing of drug evidence and why it matters.
The next installment of The Weight of Evidence will be available Thursday, June 26 on KBIA 91.3 FM airing at 7:44 a.m. and 5:45 p.m., online at kbia.org and online and in print in the Columbia Missourian.
