COUNCIL REJECTS LAW TO ALLOW MAYOR PARDONS

Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III won't pardon anybody anytime soon.

The council Monday night rejected a measure giving him power to remit fines and forfeitures and grant reprieves and pardons for city offenses.

Spradling had sought the power. But council members rejected the idea, refusing to bring the matter to a vote.

Following the meeting, Councilman Richard Eggimann said the ordinance conflicted with the city charter, which specifies the mayor has no administrative duties.

Councilmen Tom Neumeyer and J.J. Williamson said the public comments they received were solidly against giving the mayor such power.

The two councilmen said they weren't concerned about Spradling having such power, but rather the possibility a future mayor could abuse the authority.

The whole idea prompted harsh criticism from Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle.

Swingle said Spradling is a legal scholar and a close friend, but insisted the proposal was ill-conceived.

"I am concerned about the very real possibility that this law would produce sleazy justice," Swingle said in a letter to the council.

"The bottom line is you want politics out of the criminal justice system, and this proposal just injects politics into the criminal justice system," Swingle said prior to the council meeting. "It is just a step backward away from equal justice for everybody.

Spradling asked that the proposal be drafted after he questioned the sentences imposed in two municipal court cases last week.

In one case, two Southeast Missouri State University basketball players were ordered to serve five-day jail sentences during final exams last week.

Municipal Judge Edward Calvin allowed the players out of jail to take their final exams, but Spradling said it was difficult for the players to study in jail.

Spradling said he wouldn't have pardoned the players, but would have sought to delay the start of the jail sentence.

Spradling is president of the Southeast Missouri State University Boosters Club. But he said club members hadn't pressured him to propose the measure.

In the other case, Calvin sentenced a Tennessee couple to jail, which meant neither parent was available to care for their 6-month-old baby. The child was put in foster care while the couple served their sentence.

Spradling said the police department suggested the mother and father be allowed to serve their jail sentences consecutively, which the judge rejected.

State law gives mayors of third- and fourth-class cities the power Spradling requested.

Cape Girardeau's previous mayors had such power when the community was a third-class city prior to enactment of the city charter in 1981.

Spradling said such pardon power rarely would be used.

As the head of a fourth-class city, Jackson Mayor Paul Sander has the power to grant pardons. But in his two years as mayor, he hasn't used it.

"You don't want to play mayor and judge at the same time," Sander said from Jackson earlier Monday.