Several racial justice organizations evaluated the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office through a report this week saying that it is not keeping its progressive promises to the community.
The 43-page St. Louis County Prosecutor Watch report focused on five areas including transparency, charging decisions, pretrial detention decisions, conviction and sentencing and commitment to alternatives. It also provides recommendations for the office to help improve its legal system.
The justice groups that make up the Prosecutor Organizing Table include ArchCity Defenders, Action St. Louis, Forward Through Ferguson, Freedom Community Center, Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, Organization for Black Struggle, and Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center. The team released the report to hold prosecuting attorney offices in the area accountable for the promises that were made to the community during the prosecutor’s campaign.
“It is just as a general principle for an elected official, the expectation is always to be transparent,” said Mike Milton, founder of Freedom Community Center. “If we don't have that information, then there's no way to know how that office is functioning.”
The group began collecting data from St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell’s office in August 2022. They presented the office with questions such as whether the office keeps a “Brady List” or an officer exclusion list, whether the office seeks the death penalty, how long are people detained in jail, how frequently the office recommends concurrent sentences vs. consecutive sentences and what efforts Bell’s office has made to develop relationships with social service organizations. The report also offers responses to the entire list of questions posed to the office. Bell responded to some of the group’s questions, a few were listed as partial responses, and others he did not answer.
Members of the Prosecutor Organizing Table said while collecting data there were periods of time where Bell’s office made it difficult to receive some of the requested information.
William Waller, ArchCity Defenders’ managing attorney for direct representation of criminal and municipal, was able to receive internal database reports by charge type, which he said was helpful to the report. However, there were reports that the office could not run.
“It became clear that sort of a routine assessment of their charging practices was not a priority … it should be something that is freely publicly available,” he said.
In a statement Bell said he is proud of the work he has done in St. Louis County as a progressive prosecutor and will continue to do more for the community.
“I was the first prosecutor in Missouri to refuse to prosecute abortion cases, I implemented a first-of-its-kind diversion program to help keep nonviolent offenders out of jail and get them on a better path, and I’ve fought to overturn wrongful convictions,” Bell said. “I respect the work of organizations in the St. Louis community that are committed to criminal justice reform, and agree that there is more work to be done, which is why I’ll work to get progressive results for the St. Louis region in Congress."
Bell’s congressional campaign stated that the timing of the report is not coincidental and should not be ignored, since he is running against Rep. Cori Bush in the Democratic primary on Aug. 6. Bush’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The report finds the county jail population is nearing the same level as it was in 2018, the last year of former county prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s term.
“The last time we checked it was about 3% less,” Milton said. “That points to … possibly prosecutorial discretion around recommendations of bond, how he charges, what he charges and how and what he is doing to reduce the jail population.”
Members acknowledge that they have seen some improvement since Bell assumed the prosecutor’s role. They are grateful for his decision to not seek the death penalty, how he is reducing the amount of child support prosecutions and limiting prosecuting some misdemeanor charges. However, they say more work is needed to reform the courts and its legal system.
The group hopes the prosecutor’s office finds the report useful to help those who are deeply impacted by the county’s legal system and that families see this as not just data points, but to learn more about the prosecutorial system.
The Prosecutor Organizing Table will release a report on the city’s prosecutor’s office this fall.
