Missouri Supreme Court

St. Louis argues that Missouri legislators violated the state constitution by creating an unfunded mandate. The 2021 law requires cities to give officers written notice of an allegation before starting an investigation, and limits misconduct investigations to 90 days.

A law passed by the Missouri General Assembly last year made sleeping on state-owned land a Class C misdemeanor. The legislation was modeled off a template by a conservative think tank, but housing advocates say it criminalizes homelessness and was improperly tacked onto an unrelated bill.

Mayor Quinton Lucas is challenging a November 2022 statewide vote that increased the minimum percentage of its budget Kansas City must spend on its police department. Kansas City is the only major city in the U.S. that doesn’t control its police, so while City Council writes the checks, it can't decide how the funds are spent.

Kelly Broniec’s appointment to the state’s highest court creates a women-led majority. Gov. Mike Parson also appointed Broniec to the Eastern District Court of Appeals in 2020.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that Jackson County and St. Louis County should have been allowed to intervene in a lawsuit that struck down local health orders aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

The case centers on Missouri’s compulsory school attendance law, which states that a parent must ensure their child attends “the academic program on a regular basis."

The Missouri Supreme Court last week ruled against Attorney General Andrew Bailey in a fight over a proposed abortion rights amendment. Bailey had pushed to falsely inflate the estimated cost of the ballot issue, but the court ruled he did not have that power — and forced him to sign off.

The unanimous verdict was scathing in its assessment of Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who refused to sign off on the work of Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick. The court concluded that nothing in state law “gives the attorney general authority to question the auditor’s assessment of the fiscal impact of a proposed petition.”

The attorney general's office refused to sign off on a proposed amendment that would add abortion rights to the Missouri constitution. Although the state auditor's fiscal note estimated minimal cost to the state, Andrew Bailey demanded that the auditor inaccurately increase the estimate by billions of dollars.

After a Cole County judge invalidated the health powers of local governments in 2021, then-attorney general Eric Schmitt decided not to appeal the case. Local governments, who had used their authority to issue pandemic restrictions such as mask mandates, want the right to defend them in court.

The court ruled that the Missouri Conservation Commission — not lawmakers — has the power to spend appropriated funds. The decision could influence a pending Cole County case over how much Department of Transportation employees get paid.

The case centers around two parents, both of whom were sentenced to jail time because their six-year-old children missed too many days of school. Attorneys for the parents argue the state's rule mandating children attend school "on a regular basis" is vague and misleading.