Criminal Law

No. Not to clear it up, not to give your side, not because you have nothing to hide. Officers may lawfully tell you they already know what happened, imply that cooperating will help you, and decline to say what they actually have. None of that is misconduct, and none of it obligates you to speak.

Identify yourself if asked, then say once, plainly: I want a lawyer and I do not want to answer questions. Then stop — and keep stopping. The conversation in the patrol car counts. So does the one in the holding cell, and every call from a jail phone, all of which are recorded and routinely played back at trial.

Nothing you say talks you out of a charge. Prosecutors file on reports, not on explanations. What your statement does is fix your version in place before you or anyone else knows what the evidence actually shows — and if it later turns out to be wrong in any detail, that detail becomes the case against you.

Exposure and consequence. A misdemeanor carries at most one year in county jail — class A up to a year, B up to six months, C up to fifteen days, and class D no jail at all, fine only. A felony carries prison time in the Department of Corrections: class E up to four years, D up to seven, C three to ten, B five to fifteen, and A ten to thirty or life. RSMo § 558.011.

The collateral consequences diverge even further. A felony conviction costs you the right to possess a firearm under both § 571.070 and federal law, and reaches professional licensing, housing, and employment in ways a misdemeanor often does not.

Procedurally they differ too: a felony gets a preliminary hearing, a misdemeanor does not. And note the trap in classification — the same conduct can be either, depending on value thresholds, prior convictions, or whether a weapon was involved.

The most consequential distinction in Missouri criminal practice, and the one defendants least often have explained to them. Both are authorized by RSMo § 557.011.

A suspended imposition of sentence means the court never pronounces a sentence. You are placed on probation, and if you complete it there is no conviction — the official records become closed records under § 610.105. A suspended execution of sentence means the court does pronounce a sentence and merely holds it. You are convicted. If probation is revoked, the sentence already announced is executed — there is no second hearing about how long.

Two offers can look identical — same probation length, same conditions, same fine — and produce entirely different futures. Always ask which you are being offered, and understand that an SIS is generally worth accepting real conditions to obtain.

Under RSMo § 556.036: three years for most felonies, one year for misdemeanors, six months for infractions. Certain arson-related felonies get five years.

Some offenses have no limitation at all — murder, rape in the first degree, sodomy in the first degree, their attempts, and any class A felony. Those may be charged at any time.

The clock also stops running in defined circumstances: while you are absent from the state (adding up to three more years), while you are concealing yourself from justice, while you are mentally unfit to proceed, and while a prosecution is pending. There is also a DNA tolling provision that runs until the accused is identified by name. Offenses against minors have their own longer periods under § 556.037.

Read the ticket. Some Missouri violations permit payment by mail; many require an appearance, and failing to appear can produce a warrant and a licence suspension entirely separate from the original charge.

More importantly: paying a ticket is pleading guilty. It is a conviction, it reports to the Department of Revenue, and it assesses points. People suspend their own licences by mailing three cheques without ever realizing that is what they were doing — eight points in eighteen months is a suspension under § 302.304.

Many municipal traffic charges can be amended to a non-moving violation that carries no points, for a cost that is frequently less than the insurance consequence of the conviction. See traffic offenses.

Often, and Missouri’s expungement statute is more generous than most people assume — but it has hard limits. Under RSMo § 610.140 the waiting period is three years after completing the sentence for a felony, one year for a misdemeanor, municipal violation or infraction, and eighteen months from an arrest that never produced a charge.

The lifetime cap is two felonies and three misdemeanors or ordinance violations carrying possible jail. Infractions are unlimited.

But a long list of offenses is permanently ineligible — class A felonies, dangerous felonies, anything requiring sex offender registration, any felony where death is an element, felony assault, kidnapping, and both misdemeanor and felony domestic assault. Intoxication-related traffic offenses route to a different statute with a ten-year wait. See expungements, and plan for it before you take a plea rather than after.

In a felony case charged by information, the State must show a judge there is probable cause to believe a felony was committed and that you committed it. Under RSMo § 544.250, no felony information may be filed until you have had that examination or waived it. Missouri Rule 22.09 requires it within 30 days if you are in custody and 60 days if you are not.

The standard is low — far below beyond a reasonable doubt — and most cases are bound over. That is not the point of the hearing. You may cross-examine the State’s witnesses and introduce evidence, which means the hearing is the first real look at how the officer tells the story under oath, locked into a transcript.

Waiving it is sometimes right, usually as part of a negotiation. It should be a decision, not a default.

RSMo § 558.016 defines a prior offender as someone found guilty of one felony, a persistent offender as someone found guilty of two or more felonies committed at different times, and a dangerous offender as someone being sentenced for a felony involving death, threat to life or serious physical injury who also has a qualifying prior.

For a persistent or dangerous offender convicted of a class B, C, D or E felony, the court must sentence to the range “one class higher than the offense for which the person is found guilty.” A class D felony becomes a class C range.

There is a second consequence people miss entirely: under § 557.036, when the State pleads and proves any of these statuses — prior offender included — the judge assesses punishment instead of the jury. For a plain prior offender that is the principal effect, and it changes trial strategy considerably.

Sometimes. Municipal divisions are divisions of the circuit court with jurisdiction over city ordinance violations (§ 479.020). For a minor traffic violation as narrowly defined in § 479.350, § 479.353 caps the fine and court costs together at $225 and generally bars confinement.

The exceptions matter: the court may impose confinement for violations involving alcohol or controlled substances, violations endangering the health or welfare of others, and eluding or giving false information to an officer. A municipal DWI sits squarely inside the alcohol exception.

And a municipal conviction is a real conviction — a municipal DWI counts as a prior intoxication-related traffic offense that can make your next one a felony. If you lose in municipal court, you have ten days to apply for a trial de novo in circuit court under § 479.200, and Missouri Rule 37.71 bars any extension of that deadline.

Missouri public defenders are frequently very good lawyers, and if you qualify financially and cannot hire counsel, take the representation — going without a lawyer is far worse than any alternative on this page.

The honest constraint is caseload. Missouri’s system has operated under documented caseload pressure for years, which affects how much time any individual case gets, not the competence of the lawyer handling it.

Eligibility is determined by the court based on your means. If you do not qualify, you are hiring someone regardless — and the questions worth asking are who will actually appear on your case, what the fee covers, whether it includes trial, and whether they have handled this offense in this courthouse before.

Missouri operates treatment court divisions under RSMo § 478.001 — adult treatment court, DWI court, family treatment court, juvenile treatment court and veterans treatment court. They are described in the statute as specialized, nonadversarial divisions for substance-involved offenders, and on successful completion charges or penalties “may be dismissed, reduced, or modified.”

Eligibility is not set by statute. It is governed by local rules and the Missouri Treatment Court Standards, and it genuinely varies from circuit to circuit — so no honest page can tell you whether you qualify without knowing your county. The Standards do direct courts to use written objective criteria and a validated risk assessment, and they expressly discourage automatic exclusion based on charge type alone.

Where these programs fit, they are frequently the best available outcome: treatment that addresses the actual problem, and a disposition that does not follow you. It is worth asking about early, because entry is easier to negotiate before positions harden.

Criminal defense is generally flat-fee, quoted before the work starts, and scoped to a stage — pre-charge, through disposition, or through trial. You should get the number in writing before you decide.

Ask four things of anyone you interview. Who will actually appear on my case — not the firm, the person. What is included — does the fee cover trial, or does trial trigger a new fee? What are the collateral consequences of the disposition you are describing — my licence, my firearms, my job, my immigration status, my ability to expunge this later? And what is the realistic range of outcomes, stated as a range rather than a promise.

Be wary of anyone who guarantees a result. Nobody can, and the ones who try are telling you something about how they practise. The consultation here is free, it is a real conversation, and you will get an honest read including when the honest read is that your exposure is limited and you do not need to spend much.