Eric is nothing if not determined….. and patient.<\/p>\n
Measure derided as the \u2018Make Murder Legal Act\u2019 killed in Missouri Senate committee<\/a><\/p>\n JEFFERSON CITY \u2014 A Missouri Senate panel on Thursday terminated a proposal one county prosecutor called the \u201cMake Murder Legal Act.\u201d<\/p>\n The official name of the measure is\u00a0Senate Bill 666<\/a>, which the sponsor, Sen.\u00a0Eric Burlison<\/a>, R-Battlefield, said he didn\u2019t choose.<\/p>\n Members of the GOP-controlled Senate Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety Committee failed to advance the bill out of committee on Thursday.<\/p>\n Burlison, however, told the Post-Dispatch that he could bring the measure back as an amendment to other firearms legislation he\u2019s sponsoring.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are multiple ways to pass language,\u201d Burlison said.<\/p>\n The legislation would\u2019ve established a presumption that a defendant acted reasonably in self-defense when they use force against another person.<\/p>\n \u201cI refer to it as the \u2018Make Murder Legal Act,\u2019\u201d Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney Russ Oliver, a Republican representing the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, said in a Senate committee hearing last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we are doing with this bill is … basically saying the 6,500 assaults that are committed every single year in Missouri \u2014 that every single one of those are automatically presumed to be self-defense,\u201d Oliver said.<\/p>\n Burlison said the claims are overblown.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSome of the things that have been said are just absolute hyperbole,\u201d said Burlison, who is running for Congress. \u201cThe label is just really over the top.\u201d<\/p>\n St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Timothy Lohmar, a Republican, said currently, if prosecutors believe a homicide is unjustified, the person is charged with murder, for example. Provided there is some degree of evidence, Lohmar said the defendant can assert self-defense at trial as an affirmative defense.<\/p>\n He said the legislation would create \u201cpretrial immunity hearings\u201d during which a defendant would be able to make a self-defense claim. The state would then have to prove \u201cby clear and convincing evidence\u201d the defendant isn\u2019t immune from prosecution.<\/p>\n \u201cAnybody who uses a weapon to murder another individual, or to kill another individual, if they claim self-defense, the law enforcement potentially is handcuffed from even arresting that person,\u201d Lohmar said.<\/p>\n During the hearing Thursday, Sen.\u00a0Brian Williams<\/a>, D-University City, called Burlison\u2019s bill \u201cone of the most offensive pieces of legislation I have ever seen in my life. It\u2019s a personal attack on me. It\u2019s a personal attack on people who look like me,\u201d said Williams, who is Black. \u201cI try to think of words to describe it and the only word I come up in my mind is this bill is complete bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n Burlison and other proponents of the measure said the state needed to edit its \u201ccastle doctrine\u201d to avoid overzealous prosecutions.<\/p>\n Mark McCloskey, a St. Louis attorney who with his wife, Patricia, waved firearms at racial injustice protesters in 2020 outside their home, spoke in favor of the measure. The McCloskeys pleaded guilty<\/a>\u00a0to misdemeanors last year related to the incident.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bill before the Senate now turns the castle doctrine into a bar to prosecution,\u201d McCloskey said at the hearing last week. \u201cWe were shocked to find out when we were charged that the castle doctrine can only be raised as an affirmative defense.\u201d<\/p>\n Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, later pardoned the couple<\/a>. Meanwhile, the Missouri Supreme Court this week\u00a0placed the couple\u2019s law licenses<\/a>\u00a0on probation for one year.<\/p>\n Burlison said he is open to discussing changes in the proposal.<\/p>\n \u201cMy intent was to simply avoid what happened in St. Louis with the McCloskeys,\u201d Burlison said. \u201cI\u2019m all ears.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eric is nothing if not determined….. and patient. Measure derided as the \u2018Make Murder Legal Act\u2019 killed in Missouri Senate committee JEFFERSON CITY \u2014 A Missouri Senate panel on Thursday terminated a proposal one county prosecutor called the \u201cMake Murder Legal Act.\u201d The official name of the measure is\u00a0Senate Bill 666, which the sponsor, Sen.\u00a0Eric … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,24,8,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-rights","category-rkba","category-self-defense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77309,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77307\/revisions\/77309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}