Evolving door of justice

As society has developed, the court system has evolved to accommodate social changes. In civil, criminal and juvenile courts, the system has changed to meet the needs of the people.

Joseph Benson, an archivist with the Missouri Supreme Court, said that before the turn of the 20th century, only Harvard and Yale universities and Washington University in St. Louis had law schools. Most lawyers read law in a law office, and after three or four years would take the bar exam in open court.

"Theirs was a continuing legal education," Benson said.

In the early years of the state, the governor appointed judges who would serve for life, Benson said. As the judiciary has changed over the years, so has the method of choosing judges. Rural judges in the circuit courts are elected on partisan tickets, but as of 1940 judges in the circuit courts of Jackson and St. Louis counties and St. Louis City were elected on a nonpartisan basis. Thirty years later, Platte and Clay counties chose the nonpartisan election system.

Supreme Court judges are appointed initially but elected thereafter. Under what is known as the Missouri Plan, the Appellate Judicial Commission will accept and review applications and nominate three candidates for a Supreme Court vacancy. The governor chooses from the three, and after that judge sits on the bench for a year his name is put before the public to vote to retain him or not. After that his or her name is put before the voting public every 12 years until retirement or defeat.

In two more years the Missouri Supreme Court will be 100 years old. It has grown from three members to five and eventually to its current seven members. In 1907 the Supreme Court moved into its first facility, a building near the Capitol where the Department of Transportation is now.

"We're hearing a lot of cases," Benson said. "It's not uncommon every Monday and Tuesday to get a stack of applications three feet tall."

Not as many civil cases

Those cases are coming through the system from circuit courts, and eventually through the Missouri Court of Appeals. Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., now a U.S. District Judge in St. Louis, said the court system has changed as society has changed since he first started his law practice in Cape Girardeau in 1951.

Civil cases were not as frequent in the early part of the 20th century as they have become, Limbaugh said. Civil cases began picking up in the 1950s with cases involving car accidents because there were more cars on the road.

"After the mid-1960s, insurance companies began settling those cases themselves through adjusters without going through the court system," he said.

After car accident cases diminished, Limbaugh said the courts saw a growing number of product liability cases, claims made against the manufacturer of equipment or vehicles that may have had a defect. Following that, more people began suing in civil court over professional liability, and then came employment discrimination cases.

"Three or four years ago, discrimination cases were 30 percent of the civil litigation in federal courts," Limbaugh said. "Now we're getting into areas involving computer fraud ..."

Drug cases clog docket

In the criminal area, Limbaugh said, more and more drug cases began clogging the court system from the 1950s through the Vietnam War-era. State and federal lawmakers began passing laws establishing penalties for drug offenses.

"Congress and states have handled it in a way that they think their constituency approves -- very harshly," Limbaugh said. "Congress and state legislatures are really attacking the drug problem from every angle they can."

There have been times when judges and legislators thought each was infringing on the other's territory, Limbaugh said. Congress felt pressure from the public to make sentencing uniform across the states in federal cases. He thought such disparity could be helpful in keeping some criminal elements out of the state.

"If you had cocaine in Florida and got a slap on the wrist, in Missouri you might get put in jail for 10 years," he said. "I'm not bothered by that, but Congress felt that kind of disparity inappropriate."

Other judges felt Congress should not be telling the courts what to do, and some congressmen accused federal judges of trying to legislate from the bench. So far, Limbaugh said, the balance is still working.

"Separation of powers is alive and well," he said. "It prevents either branch from getting too powerful."

Emphasis on civil rights

The most significant change in the court system aside from the number of drug cases is the stress on protection of civil rights that began in 1956 with the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Limbaugh said.

"There has been a very large emphasis to protect the rights in all those areas of race sex, age and disability," he said. "I think that has been a very good thing."

Currently the courts see more class-action suits than before. The problem with most class-action suits, Limbaugh said, is that the people who benefit the most financially are not the people who have been wronged but the attorneys who pursued the case.

"The biggest benefit is if there is something wrong, the suit will stop the wrongdoing," Limbaugh said.

Sentencing laws have developed from time spent in prison to sentences that restrict the rights of the offender without incarcerating him and giving him a chance to rehabilitate. In the past few years, Limbaugh noted, drug courts have flourished. Arbitration and mediation in some cases have been successful and have saved the courts time and money.

Michael Wolff, Missouri Supreme Court justice and chairman of the Missouri Sentencing Commission, said that establishing a set of guidelines for sentencing based on the severity of the crime gives judges in circuit courts more latitude in handing down punishment.

"It used to be juries could be involved in sentencing of any