A long wait for justice

One year ago today, Michael E. Strong was slain in the living room of the Scopus, Mo., residence he shared with his girlfriend, Lisa A. Barlow.

Barlow placed a hysterical phone call to 911, saying intruders had broken into the house and she'd heard them arguing loudly with Strong, followed by a gunshot. When Bollinger County officers arrived, they found Strong lying on the sofa, dead of a single gunshot wound to the head. Police could find no sign of forced entry.

Bollinger County prosecutor Stephen Gray charged Barlow with first-degree murder and armed criminal action Aug. 1.

The charges against Barlow are among a handful of pending felony cases in Southeast Missouri that have seen a series of legal twists and turns, including changes of venue, requests for a new judge, new defense attorneys, petitions to the Court of Appeals and lengthy waits for a courtroom to try the case.

At a preliminary hearing Sept. 28, Associate Circuit Judge Scott Thomsen ordered Barlow to stand trial after Gray presented more than a dozen witnesses and forensic evidence indicating she may have lied about the home invasion.

Recently, the case was transferred to a St. Louis County judge, who scheduled a seven-day jury trial starting Jan. 26.

For Strong's family, the delays have been rough and they've tried to be patient, said Matt Strong, Michael Strong's brother.

Southeast Missourian file Emily and Michael Altom appeared in court after the the death of their son, Ethan Patrick Williams, in 2005.

"The wheels of justice, anymore, turn pretty slow," he said.

Meanwhile, Barlow remains in jail on a $500,000 cash-only bond.

"To the victims, they've only got one case; that's the most important case in the world," Cape Girardeau County Circuit Judge Benjamin Lewis said.

When it comes to getting cases disposed of quickly — by legal standards — the 32nd Judicial Circuit, made up of Cape Girardeau, Bollinger and Perry counties, sits close to the top in the state.

In 2007, the circuit disposed of 895 of its 923 felony cases in eight months or less, according to the office of the state court administrator.

According to the Missouri court operating rule 17, adopted in 1996, courts should strive to dispose of 90 percent of felony cases within eight months.

"Time standards were implemented because some circuits were having a hard time getting their cases moving," Lewis said.

However, there are no adverse consequences for circuits that take longer to get cases through the system, and many jurisdictions, like St. Louis, are simply overwhelmed by the sheer workload they deal with, Lewis said.

Even in a good system, a smattering of cases will be hit with obstacles. Anything from one witness not showing up to the prosecutor getting the flu to an ice storm forcing the courthouse to close can mean the difference between a fluid process and one that drags out over several years, Lewis said.

"A trial is kind of like a circus. If one player can't make it, it throws things off," Lewis said.

The 32nd Circuit disposed of 97 percent of its felony cases within the eight-month guideline, putting it miles ahead of circuits like St. Louis, where only 57 percent of those cases were resolved after eight months.

"There are inherent delays in completing a case set up in legal procedures, but my judges don't let cases sit around," Gray said.

However, the Perry County case against a couple facing manslaughter charges in the death of 4-year-old Ethan Patrick Williams has not seen the inside of a courtroom in more than a year.

Emily Altom, Ethan's mother, and his stepfather, Michael Altom, were charged in September 2005 with three counts each of child endangerment and one count each of voluntary manslaughter for allegedly waiting too long to seek medical attention for Ethan's bacterial infection and keeping their home in such deplorable living condition that they endangered him and his two brothers.

The last movement in the case was a notice filed July 17, 2007, by Cape Girardeau attorney Allen Moss, who represents the Altoms. The couple, now free on bond, still have not been inside a Phelps County courtroom.

"They're very frustrated. I've taken repeated calls from them wanting to know if a trial date has been set," Moss said of his clients.

The delay is partly due to an "extraordinarily clogged" Phelps County docket, Moss said. "I still haven't heard anything from them out there," he said.

Some circuit courts take the approach that the parties will contact them when they are ready.

"That often allows things to percolate awhile," Gray said.

On the other hand, Moss said, the death of Ethan is one of the highest-profile cases ever to come out of Perry County and is extremely complex, involving numerous depositions and the use of expert witnesses to provide intricate medical testimony. Moss said he and Perry County Prosecuting Attorney Thomas Hoeh have spent months taking depositions.

"It's just going to take a lot of time to get ready for a trial like that. It's not so important to do it fast but to do it right," he said.

A murder case that could involve a similar amount of lengthy expert testimony is that of Ashley N. Clark, a Sikeston, Mo., woman charged in July 2006 with the first-degree murder of her stepdaughter, 1-year-old Devionah Clark, after allegedly throwing the toddler into a chair and swinging her into a door.

The case was transferred to New Madrid County. At a hearing in May, a trial setting was delayed until further notice, according to the New Madrid County circuit clerk's office.

Darren Cann, prosecuting attorney for Mississippi County, part of the 33rd Judicial Circuit with Scott County, said felony cases that are likely to result in a four- or five-day trial tend to be "supercomplicated" because of the number of witnesses needed, delays with witnesses who are required to travel in order to testify and finding a courtroom for the case.

The 33rd Circuit disposed of 85 percent of the 897 felony cases it resolved last year within eight months, and only 69 cases took longer than 12 months.

"It's been my experience that they keep a pretty tight wrap on them," Cann said.

Another reason many felony cases stretch on longer is they often require DNA testing or controlled substance analysis, both endeavors that can easily add several months to the legal proceedings, depending on how backlogged the crime lab may be.

"When I got into this field, I was shocked to find out it's not like TV. DNA tests can take as long as six to nine months," Cann said.

Since winter of 2006, now 14-year-old Owen Welty has remained in jail after being certified as adult to face trial for the murder of his neighbor, Don McCollough, in Stoddard County.

The case has had multiple motions and changes of venue, and most recently was assigned to a special prosecutor from the attorney general's office for a trial beginning Nov. 10 in St. Louis.

In Carter County, where in 2007 only 58 percent of felony cases were disposed of within the eight-month guideline, Lance Shockley has been waiting for three years to stand trial in the killing of state trooper Carl Dewayne Graham Jr. The latest delay in a long series of motions that have bogged down the capital murder case was a July 9 motion by Shockley's public defenders to withdraw from the case.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245

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