Preliminary Report on the Defense of Indigents in Missouri

Last year the American Bar Foundation, in cooperation with the American Bar Association and other groups, launched a nationwide audit of the defense of indigent persons accused of crime. Information was gathered from every state. Within each state, questionnaires were mailed to most judges, all prosecuting attorneys, and a sampling of defense lawyers, and field surveys were conducted in several counties selected at random. One or more reporters, usually native lawyers presumably familiar with the state\u27s administration of criminal law, interviewed the judge, the prosecuting attorney, the magistrate, and, if there was one, the public defender, in each survey county. They also prepared detailed analyses, called “docket studies,” of a random sampling of the criminal cases processed by the survey counties in 1962. The end product should be the most comprehensive compilation of data about the administration of criminal law yet attempted in the United States. This Article is a preliminary report on the data collected in Missouri

Election Signs and Time Limits

This Essay deals with a question the United States Supreme Court has never answered directly, namely, whether a community may impose time limits on the periods during which signs carrying messages about election issues may be displayed. It begins with a brief survey of relevant Supreme Court decisions before coming to grips with that question

Some Factors Influencing the Outcome of Felony Appeals in Missouri

Recently I completed a study of all of the felony appeals decided by the Missouri Supreme Court during the two year period ending March 1, 1964. Its purpose was to test the accuracy of the United States Supreme Court\u27s assumption that the absence of a lawyer makes a “meaningless ritual” of a felony appeal. That investigation uncovered other factors, notably prior convictions, which seemed to influence the outcome of appeals. But since they were unrelated to lawyer involvement they were not discussed. This note presents the material omitted from the first study. Its purpose, however, is not to venture conclusions. The mere coincidence of two events does not prove a causal relationship between them. So, for example, the fact that affirmance rates vary directly with prior convictions does not prove that past records cause appeals to be affirmed. But it does suggest that an investigation into such a possibility might prove fruitful. The purpose of this Article, then, is to offer a few suggestions for future research

Discrimination Against Negroes in the Administration of Criminal Law in Missouri

This Article is a preliminary effort to determine whether it is possible to evaluate some of the charges of subtle discrimination against Negroes in the administration of criminal law