crime

Over the last three years, Kansas City Police Department statistics show a decrease in both homicides and nonfatal shootings. Police and community partners attribute the drop to a combination of preventive tactics.

Jackson County is voting for its new county executive this year. All the candidates put property taxes as their top priority. But go beyond that, and the differences creep in.

Gov. Mike Kehoe on Thursday also signed into law harsher penalties for drunk driving and age verification requirements for pornography websites.

In a recent St. Louis case, the Missouri State Highway Patrol told an appellate court that “hundreds of thousands” of marijuana offenses may still exist on criminal records that should have been cleared. And it's not clear what affected people are supposed to do about it.

Other parts of the bill include limits on flying drones over open-air stadiums and establishing a crime for gift card fraud.

The bipartisan Missouri bill would require unanimous juries in death penalty cases, and automatically expunge nonviolent crimes after people serve their sentences. But Senate Majority Leader Tony Luetkemeyer, a Republican from Parkville, says the death penalty changes won’t pass.

Donald Fields was indicted in 2022 but not arrested until 2025. He also faces multiple state charges including child rape and molestation.

Missouri already has an expungement system that allows people convicted of certain nonviolent misdemeanors and felonies to petition the court to seal their records. The "Clean Slate Act" would make that process automatic, potentially helping thousands of Missourians find housing and a job.

Rep. Melanie Stinnett, a Springfield Republican, sponsored the bipartisan bill that could give voting rights back to more than 53,000 Missourians. It passed the Missouri House 107-36, and is now waiting for action in the Senate.

Under a Missouri House bill, if a person is convicted of domestic violence and has been convicted at least once before, they would have to register as a persistent offender.

Missouri is one of two states where, if a jury is deadlocked on whether to sentence someone to death, the judge can issue the death penalty. The bill also establishes an automatic record-clearing process for most nonviolent offenses.

Christopher Dunn was convicted of murder in 1991 based on the testimony of two adolescent boys who both later recanted. A judge threw out the conviction in 2024, but the Missouri attorney general's office has appealed the decision.