Cape County to pay Pulaski County for housing murder suspect

Cape Girardeau County Commissioners reluctantly complied Thursday with a court order demanding the county pay $22,752.25 to Pulaski County for housing murder suspect Justin Brown.

Commissioners had originally balked at paying the money, the final installment on the change-of-venue case that ended in May with a guilty verdict and life sentence for Brown in the 2002 death of Ralph Lee Lape Jr. The county had already paid $25,852.18 for trial costs and $9,446.86 for medical care and prescription drugs for Brown.

But after Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle researched their options -- and reported that the county would likely lose any appeal of the court order and that commissioners faced contempt of court citations -- commissioners voted to pay the bill. But they didn't like it.

"The judge ordered us to pay, and we didn't have a choice," Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said. "That still burns me so much I am not going to go on to other things."

Commissioners also criticized Pulaski County for spending too much on medical care and too much on meals for the jurors in the May trial, allowing them to eat steak and shrimp cocktail knowing that Cape Girardeau would foot the bill.

Commissioner Jay Purcell complained that the court order, from Circuit Judge Tracy L. Storie of Pulaski County, was issued without giving Swingle an opportunity to argue its merits. "There was no due process," he said. "There was no evidentiary hearing. None of that occurred."

The bill began growing when Brown was taken to Pulaski County after his case was transferred. Pulaski County charged $40 a day to house Brown, who spent 1,118 days in that county's jail. The state reimbursement program paid $20 a day, leaving the remainder in dispute.

Jones said he considers the charge excessive, noting that Cape Girardeau accepts the state reimbursement as payment in full for prisoners brought here on a change of venue. "They cheated us," he said. "And there seems to be no recourse."

In his report to the county, Swingle said his informal survey of county prosecutors found that about half the counties in the state accept the state reimbursement as full payment for housing another county's prisoner and the other half charge more.

Pulaski County Circuit Clerk Rachelle Beasley agreed the total sounds high, but also noted that Cape Girardeau County could have avoided the big payment by accepting monthly bills while Brown waited for trial.

"We did bill Cape Girardeau on a monthly basis, and they said they didn't want us to send the bills anymore," she said. "Then it accumulated over several years."

The $40 per day charge is a standard used in the four-county 25th Circuit, Beasley said.

Brown successfully postponed his six-day trial far longer than co-defendant Mark Gill. Gill was tried and found guilty in 2004. He awaits execution.

The bills for housing and medical treatment became so large that Jones successfully lobbied the Missouri Legislature to change the law on change of venue cases. Prior to the change, a prisoner was moved to the new trial location immediately. Under the current law, a prisoner on change of venue can be housed in the county where the crime originated except when he must appear in court.

"On the day the law took effect there was a squad car in front of the Pulaski County jail, the deputy had a copy of the new legislation and we took our prisoner," Jones said.

In his opinion letter, Swingle said state law requires a county sending a prisoner on a change of venue to pay all costs associated with keeping the prisoner. An appeal, he said, "would have been a huge expenditure of my time on a case we would probably lose."

A small portion of the bill approved Thursday was for unpaid medical costs. Meal costs are justified, Beasley said, because the jury was sequestered in a motel, and a good meal was their only entertainment.

And it's not the county's job to contest medical costs, she said.

Beasley, for one, is glad the case is settled. "It has been an adventure," she said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

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