Southeast business law students get inside look at Missouri Court of Appeals

Dr. Mary Johnson's business law class at Southeast Missouri State University spent the first two months of the semester learning about the structure of the federal and state court systems, the U.S. Constitution and what constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure.

On Wednesday, the abstract concepts took on new life as three appellate judges from the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District sat several feet away, listening to lawyers argue the validity of an arrest made in Cape Girardeau.

Johnson said she usually takes her class to St. Louis to hear the appellate court's docket, so she was pleased to learn they would be making a trip to the campus, the court's third session at the university.

"It's a real learning experience to see that what we study in class is what actually happens in court," Johnson said.

The Court of Appeals holds sessions in the northern and southern parts of the district, with the idea being to not restrict themselves to just the main courthouse in St. Louis, said Judge Kurt S. Odenwald.

"It is important to make our court and its judges accessible, not just to the local lawyers who argue cases before us, but to anyone interested in seeing how our state judicial system works," Odenwald said.

The case, involving the 2007 conviction of Jerry D. Cook for driving while intoxicated as a persistent offender, turned on whether a Cape Girardeau officer acted within the confines of constitutional protections when he went into Cook's house to make the arrest.

Attorney Phil R. Dormeyer, who represented Cook, argued that any incriminating statements made by his client at the time of his arrest should not have been admissible during the trial because the warrantless arrest violated Cook's constitutional rights.

Shaun J. Mackelprang, representing Missouri in the appeal, argued that the circumstances of the case, the fact that Cook's wife told officers her husband was drunk and she wanted him to go to jail, and an eyewitness account of the accident that Cook had been involved in earlier, amounted to probable cause in the arrest.

The circumstances had to be weighed against the sanctity of the home guaranteed by constitutional protections, Judge Roy L. Richter said.

One of Johnson's students, Matthew Kirkpatrick, asked the judges why Cook was arrested for driving while intoxicated when the officers didn't see him driving the car.

Richter said the case was built on circumstantial evidence and that the judges weren't there to debate the facts of the case -- those had already been decided by a jury.

"We're hear to review, basically, errors of law," Richter said.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

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