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Criminal code revisions will have to wait until next year

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Efforts to update Missouri’s criminal code have stalled in the state Senate, where Senator Tom Dempsey declared the bill is dead for this legislative session.

The legislature will adjourn on Friday. The criminal code is a compilation of the state’s criminal violations and punishments that are attached to those crimes.

Patrick Starke is the president of the Missouri Bar Association, who helped write the bill. He says the criminal code is just “too big of a whale for the legislature to swallow” in the last few days of the session.

“This is very large." said Starke. "It’s very complex in that it changes hundreds of statutes and I can appreciate that the folks in the Senate want to deliberate about it a little longer than they were afforded the opportunity to do so.”

Starke says he will work with each of the state’s Senators in the coming months to help them understand the new criminal code proposals.

This is the second consecutive year the criminal code bill died at the end of the session. Missouri’s criminal code has not been reorganized since 1979.

Jacob spearheads KRCU’s local news effort. His reporting has been heard on NPR’ Morning Edition and All Things Considered, PRI’s The World, and Harvest Public Media. In addition to reporting, Jacob directs KRCU’s team of student reporters and producers.
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