A Missouri appellate court reversed a misdemeanor conviction on September 24, 2026, because the State proved where a parked car and a park bench were, but never proved where the protected person was. In an order-of-protection prosecution built on a distance term, that gap is not a detail. It is the case.
Status note. The opinion discussed here, State v. Haag, No. SD39305, was handed down by the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, on September 24, 2026. A Court of Appeals opinion is not the last word while a motion for rehearing or an application to transfer the case to the Supreme Court of Missouri remains available or pending. Confirm the current status before relying on it.
Orders of protection are among the most common court orders in Missouri, and violating one is a criminal charge rather than a civil contempt proceeding. A decision released this week from the Southern District shows how precisely the terms of the order and the wording of the charge have to line up before a conviction can stand. The court reversed a class A misdemeanor conviction out of Butler County, holding that the evidence did not establish the one fact the order and the statute both required.
The opinion is short, and its reasoning is not novel. It applies a rule Missouri courts have stated many times: an appellate court reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence will not supply proof the State did not present. What makes it worth reading is how ordinary the mistake was.
What happened in Butler County
According to the opinion, the protected person was the foster parent of the defendant’s three children. In May 2024 the defendant was served with a full order of protection that, among other terms, barred her from coming within 500 feet of that person and from entering or staying at that person’s residence.
The charge at issue arose from May 1, 2025. The protected person testified that he was leaving his home to drive to Walmart when he saw the defendant’s car parked in the lot of a park directly across from his house. He photographed the car. He testified that he looked in the car and scanned the park and did not see the defendant anywhere. He then called the police.
A city police officer responded to the home that evening, found the defendant sitting on a park bench playing a guitar, and measured the distance from the bench to the protected person’s front door at 435 feet. The trial court found the defendant guilty as charged.
What the statute actually requires
Violating a full order of protection is a class A misdemeanor under section 455.085.8, RSMo. The subsection lists the categories of terms whose violation is criminal, and the distance category is written this way:
“… or entrance upon the premises of the petitioner’s dwelling unit or place of employment or school, or being within a certain distance of the petitioner or a child of the petitioner …”
Section 455.085.8, RSMo
The statute treats entering the premises and being within a certain distance as two separate things. Premises are a place. The distance runs to a person. Subsection 7 uses the same language for ex parte orders, so the distinction is not unique to full orders.
The gap in the State’s proof
The order in this case prohibited two things relevant here: entering or staying at the residence, and coming within 500 feet of the protected person. There was no claim the defendant entered the house. That left the distance term, and the distance term measured to the person.
The charging document, however, alleged that the defendant violated the order “by walking and parking within 500 feet of” the residence. That is what the State proved at trial. No witness placed the protected person at the house during the window when the defendant was on the park bench. He testified that he saw the car as he was leaving for Walmart. He did not testify that he went, that he returned, or that he was home when the officer arrived and found the defendant in the park.
The court held that the State therefore failed to prove the element it had to prove. Measuring 435 feet from a park bench to a front door establishes the distance between two places. It does not establish the distance between two people unless someone puts the protected person at that door.
“For this Court to conclude otherwise would require us to supply missing evidence.”
Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, SD39305
The court also noted that the sufficiency claim was preserved even though no written motion for judgment of acquittal was filed, citing longstanding Missouri authority that a sufficiency challenge survives on appeal whether or not it was raised in the trial court. That point matters in misdemeanor practice, where records are often thin and hearings move quickly.
The contrast the court drew
The opinion distinguishes a Western District decision, State v. Jonas, in which the evidence was held sufficient. There, the defendant was arrested in the house next door to the protected person’s home, and the responding officer detained the defendant, then walked next door and spoke with the protected person inside her home. The officer’s own account placed both people in adjacent houses at the same time. That is the proof the Butler County record lacked.
The lesson for prosecutors is narrow and concrete: on a distance term, someone has to testify to where the protected person was, not merely where the protected person lives.
What a Missouri order of protection can contain
The terms available in a full order are set by section 455.050, RSMo, which allows the court to include “such terms as the court reasonably deems necessary to ensure the petitioner’s safety.” The statute then lists particular forms of relief.
Commonly included in a full order:
· Enjoining domestic violence, stalking, cyberstalking, sexual assault, molesting, or disturbing the peace of the petitioner, including violence against a pet.
· Enjoining the respondent from entering the premises of the petitioner’s dwelling unit in the circumstances the statute describes.
· Enjoining communication with the petitioner in any manner or through any medium.
· After a hearing, custody and visitation terms, child support, maintenance, possession of specified personal property, counseling, costs, and possession and care of a pet.
A distance term is not one of the enumerated items. It comes in through the catch-all, and its scope is whatever the judge writes on the form. An order can be drafted to keep a respondent a set distance from the petitioner, and a separate term can address the residence. Whether both appear, and in what words, is a drafting question with direct criminal consequences later. Petitioners who want the residence covered should ask for language that says so.
Why a misdemeanor charge here is worth defending
A class A misdemeanor in Missouri carries a term of imprisonment not to exceed one year under section 558.011.1(6), RSMo, and a fine of up to two thousand dollars under section 558.002.1(2), RSMo. Those are the visible consequences. The less visible ones do more damage.
What follows a first conviction:
· Felony exposure on a repeat. Under section 455.085.8, a violation within five years of a prior guilty plea or finding of guilt on an ex parte or full order becomes a class E felony, punishable by a term of years not to exceed four.
· Record consequences. A conviction for violating a protective order appears in background checks used by landlords, licensing boards, and employers, and it colors any later custody or guardianship proceeding.
· Firearm consequences in some cases. The federal prohibition at 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8) attaches to certain qualifying orders, not to every order of protection.
That last point is frequently misstated. The federal provision reaches a person subject to a court order that was issued after a hearing with actual notice and an opportunity to participate, that restrains the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or a child of that partner or person, and that either includes a credible-threat finding or explicitly prohibits the use or threatened use of physical force. On the facts described in this opinion, the protected person was the foster parent of the respondent’s children, which is not an intimate partner relationship. Anyone subject to an order should have the actual document reviewed against the federal text rather than assuming either way. The firm handles these questions alongside its firearms offense work.
Practical points on both sides of an order
If you hold an order of protection. Read the terms and know which ones are geographic, which ones are about contact, and what distance, if any, is written in. If an incident occurs, note where you actually were and when, and say so to the responding officer. A photograph of a car is evidence of a car.
If you are subject to an order. The order controls, not a general sense of what is fair or what the other person expects. Terms differ from case to case, and a term that does not appear in your order cannot be enforced against you, while one that does appear will be. Reading the order with a lawyer before a dispute arises is far cheaper than litigating a misdemeanor charge afterward.
If you are charged. The first documents to compare are the order itself and the charging document. This case turned on a mismatch between them. Sufficiency of the evidence is preserved for appeal in Missouri regardless of what happened below, but the better outcome is a record built at trial. Our criminal defense and domestic violence defense pages describe how we approach these cases, and a reversal or dismissal is often the first step toward an expungement conversation.
Helpful resources
The coverage below is drawn from several vantage points and labeled by ownership, so you can weigh each account and reach your own conclusion.
· Opinion, SD39305 (PDF) — Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, September 24, 2026 (Missouri Judiciary, primary source).
· Missouri appellate opinions by date — Missouri Office of State Courts Administrator (state agency, primary source).
· Section 455.085, RSMo and section 455.050, RSMo — Missouri Revisor of Statutes (Missouri General Assembly, codified text).
· Section 558.011, RSMo and section 558.002, RSMo — sentencing terms and fines (Missouri Revisor of Statutes, codified text).
· 18 U.S.C. 922(g) — Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives (federal government, primary source).
· Missouri court forms and self-help — Missouri Judiciary (state agency).
Related on this site: Missouri castle doctrine and the jury instruction in State v. Matlock · Criminal cases in Missouri: what happens if you are charged · Expungement: the process and who is eligible · A felony threat conviction over Facebook messages
Charged with violating an order of protection?
Bring the order and the charging document, and we will tell you what the State actually has to prove.
Or call (314) 732-1547
This article is provided for general educational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Haake Law Group PC or Derek R. Haake. Laws, rules, and court decisions change, and appellate opinions may be modified, superseded, or transferred on further review. Verify any statute, rule, or decision against its current official source and consult a licensed attorney about your specific situation before acting.