The Missouri House is moving forward with legislation that eliminates allowing a judge to sentence someone to death in the case of a deadlocked jury.
House members gave first-round approval to the legislation last week. It is likely to pass the chamber this week.
Missouri is one of two states where, if a jury is deadlocked on whether to sentence someone to death, the judge can issue the death penalty. Indiana is the other.
The bill removes that ability.
"What we're saying is that if there is a hung jury in that sentencing trial, then that judge shall not be burdened with such a decision and instead, should have the decisions of life or life without parole," said Rep. Bishop Davison, R-Republic, sponsor of the bill.
Speaking on the House floor last week, Rep. David Tyson Smith, D-Columbia, agreed with that change.
"I think that was problematic to allow a jury to not want, necessarily not agree on the death penalty, but then a judge to say, 'Well, I'm going to go ahead and do it,'" Smith said.
Automatic expungement process
The bill also establishes an automatic record-clearing or expungement process for closing records for most nonviolent offenses.
According to Davidson, it would not apply to offenses against children, violent crimes or traffic violations.
"If you've served your time, you've served your sentence, we believe that is sufficient and we want to integrate you as best as possible back into Missouri society," Davidson said.
On the floor last week, Rep. Marlene Terry, D-St. Louis, touted the benefits to implementing automatic expungement.
"Everyone deserves a good job and a comfortable living environment, but unfortunately, we have constructed a society in which most individuals with a criminal record cannot achieve such things.
Terry is the sponsor of a similar bill this session.
Those who testified in support of the legislation included Mallory Rusch with Empower Missouri, an antipoverty activist organization. She said part of the goal is to create an easier path for housing.
"Our criminal justice system was not set up so that we could punish people for the rest of their lives," Rusch said.
Most of the concerns about the legislation involved the possible cost of establishing an automatic expungement system, as well as how it would work in the state.
Davidson said in committee that the bill's possible cost has fluctuated between sessions, going as high as roughly $86 million in general revenue for full implementation of the process.
"One of the big parts of the fiscal note, and the challenge of fiscal note was, what if this software isn't actually implemented, and this all has to be done by hand?" Davison said. "We're doing our best to ensure that this is, in fact, an automatic expungement by the letter of the law."
The fiscal note for this year has the process costing roughly $1.4 million in general revenue when fully implemented in fiscal 2031, though it also states it could likely exceed that cost.
The note also has the program costing more than $14.4 million from fiscal 2027 through 2029 while it's being set up.
Eric Jennings, who spoke on behalf of the Judicial Conference of Missouri against the legislation, said progress has been made but more work needs to be done on how it would operate in the state.
"What we've essentially done is taken what has been done in other states and attempted to drop it, superimpose it on top of what Missouri has," Jennings said.
The legislation is HB 2747.
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