The Attorney General represents the state in every felony case appealed to the Supreme Court of Missouri and Missouri Court of Appeals. Each year, attorneys in the Criminal Division brief and argue more than 700 cases in the Missouri Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of our state. Division attorneys also assist local and state authorities with extraditions to and from Missouri of those charged in criminal cases.

The Criminal Division represents the state in every felony case, including capital cases, appealed to the Supreme Court of Missouri and the three districts of the Missouri Court of Appeals (Eastern, Western and Southern). The division also represents the state in civil appeals filed in Sexually Violent Predator commitment cases. Each year, the division’s attorneys litigate several hundred appeals.

The division handled many notable Capital cases in 2009.

• In State v. Leonard Taylor, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld Mr. Taylor’s first-degree murder convictions and four death sentences imposed on him by a St. Louis County jury for shooting and killing his girlfriend and for the execution-style murders of her three children, ages 5, 6, and 10.
• In Earl Forrest v. State, the Court upheld Mr. Forrest’s three first-degree murder convictions and three death sentences. Forrest killed two people when his demands related to a methamphetamine-related deal were not met, and he then shot a sheriff and killed a deputy sheriff in a shoot-out.
• In State v. Kenneth Baumruk, the Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence of Kenneth Baumruk, who shot and killed his wife during a divorce hearing at the St. Louis County Courthouse in 1992, and shot and wounded four other people before he himself was shot and wounded by police.
• In State v. Kevin Johnson, Jr,the Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence of Kevin Johnson, who ambushed a Kirkwood Police Officer as he sat in his patrol car and killed him in an execution-style shooting.

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