Man goes to jail, but was never convicted

ST. LOUIS -- A judge signed the wrong paperwork and sent a burglary suspect to jail three months ago, but the man was never convicted of the crime.

If the man is found guilty, he will simply get credit on his sentence for the time he spent waiting for a trial. However, if he's found innocent, the error could have cost him extra months behind bars.

Michael Cook, 46, of Belleville, Ill., has been held since he was charged nearly a year ago with second-degree burglary in two break-ins in November 2001 at a club on Laclede's Landing in St. Louis.

While rules bar lawyers from publicly discussing the case, court documents reported in Sunday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch provided some details.

Cook was scheduled to go to trial Dec. 16. But instead of hearing arguments and evidence, St. Louis Circuit Judge Julian Bush signed an order finding Cook guilty and sentencing him to five years in prison.

Cook pleaded innocent to the charges and had not had a trial.

Sheriff's deputies handed Cook over to state corrections officials.

On Wednesday, Bush fixed the mistake and took responsibility. In a hearing transcript, Bush addressed a public defender and assistant circuit attorney Catherine Crowley.

'It's my fault'

He said they told him, and he independently verified, that he wrongly entered a judgment saying he sentenced Cook to prison.

Bush said Cook's lawyer "evidently" prepared a judgment document in anticipation that Cook would plead guilty, but that Cook had not done so.

"Somehow or another, I don't think anybody's quite sure, the sentence and judgment drafted by this lawyer ended up on the judge's, it was my desk, with some other papers, and I carelessly did not look at the papers carefully enough and signed the sentence and judgment," Bush continued. "And off went Mr. Cook. It's my fault. I should have looked at the papers more carefully."

Cook spent about two months at the a prisoner processing center in Fulton, Mo. On Feb. 25, he was assigned to the state prison near Bowling Green. He was returned to St. Louis at Bush's direction Tuesday morning.

The case will be reset for trial.

For now, Cook is held at the city justice center, unable to raise the $5,000 bail.

Bush and Cook's lawyer, public defender Michael Meyers, signed the judgment that sent Cook to state prison; Crowley did not sign it.

Circuit attorney Jennifer Joyce called Bush a "meticulous" judge known for paying "a great attention to detail."

"That's not just blowing smoke," she added. "I think he's a very good judge."