Judge Lewis talks court system with gun violence group

Circuit Judge Benjamin Lewis discusses the Missouri court system with the Gun Violence Task Force at its Thursday, Aug. 15, meeting at City Hall.

Nathan Gladden ~ ngladden@semissourian.com

Missouri 32nd District Circuit Judge Benjamin Lewis spoke about the state’s court system and insight into gun crimes at Cape Girardeau’s Gun Violence Task Force meeting Thursday, Aug. 15, at City Hall.

Lewis talked about prison capacity and, despite the "Why don’t you just lock them all up?" mentality some people might have toward criminals, he said they have much less prison space than the number of felons.

“Essentially, if you put one in, they push one out someplace,” Lewis said.

Co-chair Adam Kidd wraps up the Gun Violence Task Force and lets the committee know Prosecuting Attorney Mark Welker will speak at the Thursday, Aug. 22, meeting.

Nathan Gladden ~ ngladden@semissourian.com

He said there are many steps to try and not incarcerate people through suspended impositions, probation and/or treatment programs.

Lewis said they only have 30,992 beds in the prisons and even though he couldn’t give the current incarceration cost, he knew it from 10 years ago.

“It was about $30,000 a year, and I figure it has to be at least $40,000 a year by now, getting the cost of everything going up,” Lewis said.

He also spoke out against the idea of mass incarceration. Lewis said he finds it “deeply offensive.” He said all people he sent to the Missouri Department of Corrections were either found guilty by a jury, by him “beyond reasonable doubt” or swore under oath they committed every element of the offense.

“These are people that are arrested for a reason, prosecuted for a reason and convicted for a reason,” Lewis said.

He said while he is not a “criminologist” or a “psychiatrist”, most of the murders or assaults done by people fall into four buckets in his opinion. Lewis said one of them that he considers most concerning is the “typical street crime offender.”

“Usually young, 18 to 24, impulsive, almost always acquired the gun illegally,” Lewis described.

He said they would usually buy the gun from “a guy on the street” and are most likely possessing it illegally, too.

He described the person in the second bucket as the “mature offender”. He said their guns also are acquired illegally.

“They tend to use their weapons in planned offenses. They carry the gun when they go make a drug deal. They carry the gun when they go rob somebody,” Lewis said.

Lewis said the third bucket is “older guys who have legally acquired weapons and they shoot family members.”

He said the last bucket is “psychotics and psychopaths.”

“We pass by them every day, shoulder to shoulder in traffic, at Walmart, at the park, and you’re never aware of them until they commit a crime that’s in our zone,” Lewis said.

Once he established these types of offenders, Lewis turned his attention back to his first bucket. He said once someone is found guilty or pleads guilty, the person is entitled to a hearing assessment in which they will learn basic information and some history about the offender.

“I don’t presume things about people, but the same things keep happening over and over again, and it’s hard not to believe that my perceptions are accurate,” Lewis said.

He went on to describe some of the characteristics of the “typical street crime offender”, including early-age marijuana use and having a single mother.

“Born to a single mother. OK, so mom’s at home. She’s got other kids. She’s distracted. She’s not going to give this guy the kind of attention that I was fortunate to get when I was a kid. She may have her own substance abuse issues. Young man may have been abused, but most likely not. He starts smoking marijuana when he’s 10 or 12. I’ve seen it as young as 6. By the time he’s 14, he’s smoking every day,” Lewis said. “He’s out of school. By the time he’s 16, he has no job skills. He has no support system in the way that we would we enjoy the support systems in our lives.”

He said the man doesn’t feel like he has any control in his life and, in the judge’s experience, the shooters “tend to be smaller guys” but feel big when they have a gun in their hand.

He also said he seldom hears a person say they are “sorry” after their sentencing. Lewis claimed he heard that much more 30 years ago when he was in Division 3.

He said his solution for lessening gun violence is to get the illegal guns off the street, but also change the hearts and minds of those young people he previously talked about.

The next meeting of the Gun Violence Task Force will take place Thursday, Aug. 22. The committee members include co-chairman and president of Kidd Oil Co. Adam Kidd; co-chairwoman and executive director of Safe House of Southeast Missouri Jessica Hill; Cape Girardeau Public Schools superintendent Howard Benyon; Cape Girardeau Public Schools assistant superintendent Josh Crowell; Cape Central High School counselor Nita DuBose; development director of Southeast Missouri Network Against Sexual Violence Alix Gasser; Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce president Rob Gilligan; Ritter Real Estate’s Jared Ritter; Cape Girardeau Central High School principal Nancy Scheller; Broadway Pharmacy owner Lee Schlitt; licensed clinical social worker Laura Bain Selbo; Community Partnership of Southeast Missouri executive director Melissa Stickel; Lighthouse United Church senior pastor Adrian Taylor; Cape Girardeau County Presiding Commissioner Clint Tracy; former City Council member Shannon Truxel; Southeast Missouri State University president Carlos Vargas; Jefferson Elementary principal Amber Walker; Cape Girardeau Police Department retiree Lynn Ware; Moms Demand Action’s Leslie Washington; and Cape Girardeau Public Schools district registrar Tina Wright.