Municipal Courts

ArchCity Defenders is calling for the consolidation of St. Louis’ municipal court system in a new report. It examines how legislation, litigation and advocacy efforts changed the courts a decade after the killing of Michael Brown Jr.

Over 15,000 people in the St. Louis region who were jailed in Ferguson can receive money from a $4.5 million class-action settlement. The City of Ferguson settled a lawsuit filed by ArchCity Defenders in 2015. The suit alleges that the city's courts system jailed people for an inability to pay traffic fines and fees and were kept in horrible conditions.

The settlement follows a lawsuit accusing Maplewood of running “a mechanism to extort payment from vulnerable targets.”

Individuals who were fined, faced arrest or spent time in jail because they could not pay between 2013 and 2021 are eligible to sign up for compensation.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger's new book explores how county and municipal courts exploit people, creating a cycle that dooms poor people to mountains of debt and frequent jail stays.

Tom Zoellner’s new book, “The National Road: Dispatches From a Changing America," offers a journey into the uneasy soul of the nation: what unites us, what divides us, and what lies in the middle between the gleaming cities of the coasts. He discussed it on "St. Louis on the Air."

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, it's been nearly six months since municipal courts in St. Louis County were able to meet in person. That's created a backlog of thousands of cases ranging from speeding tickets to driving while intoxicated to uncut grass. Like so many other institutions, those local courts have adapted. There are about 80 municipal courts in the St. Louis area, and at least two-thirds of them are now offering a video court option.

Five years ago this month, the nonprofit legal advocacy group ArchCity Defenders and its allies opened a new line of attack on what they viewed as the…

Michael Brown’s 2014 death at the hands of a Ferguson police officer painted a clear picture of the troubled relationship between the police and the…

ArchCity Defenders, the nonprofit civil rights law firm, has teamed up with the St. Louis County Library and the Mound City Bar Association to launch…