When Oregon County Circuit Clerk Betty Grooms submitted a requested spreadsheet showing costs assessed on criminal cases for more than the three past years, the presiding judge of the 37th Judicial Circuit decided to hold her in contempt because he determined the document was missing information.
That’s because the oversight caused a delay, which prevented Oregon County from securing state reimbursements and Judge Steven Privette was required to review and sign the cost bills, according to media reports.
Grooms’ attorney David Duree filed a Writ of Prohibition with the Missouri Supreme Court.
“My client feels like the judge has gone too far in trying to enforce his position,” he said in an interview. “We're waiting to see what the Supreme Court rules.”
Duree argued State ex rel. Grooms v. Privette last month.
Howell County assistant prosecutor Heath Hardman countered on behalf of Privette that the judge was only trying to enforce compliance for an administrative duty he was required to fulfill under state law.
“A court has inherent power to enforce its orders, and if it’s stripped of that authority, what authority do those orders have?” Hardman said at the Feb. 28 hearing.
Duree is counsel on a similar case in Lincoln County involving Judge Patrick Flynn and Lincoln County’s former Clerk of the Circuit Court Karla Allsberry.
"It's just two isolated cases where the judges and the clerks didn't see eye to eye on some things,” Duree said about the sister cases. “It’s not the norm.”
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, Flynn recently announced that he is retiring in June.
Allsberry, a Republican, sued Flynn, a Democrat, alleging he overstepped his authority by placing her on indefinite administrative leave and banning her from performing circuit clerk duties.
“I certainly wouldn't conclude that there's any kind of widespread, similar conduct involving judges and clerks than in these two isolated cases,” Duree added.
Flynn was reprimanded last year by the Missouri Supreme Court for failing to file timely reports of cases and allowing at least two legal cases to languish for two years without adjudication.
He blamed the delays on assignments outside the circuit, COVID-19, his regular workload, and the time required to address alleged disorganization and discord within Allsberry's office, but the commission still found the conduct to be in violation of Supreme Court rules, according to an Aug. 5 report issued by the Commission.