The 'Good Ol Boy System' has been in place here in Pettis County for generations. Sherriff Starkey was a known member of one of the Aryn brotherhoods. He left present sheriff Kevin Bond to carry on the legal traditions here.
The county jail is being run in a manner that holds people in a stall pattern in a make-shift torture chamber that drives it's occupants insane.
Ninety percent of all convictions here are the results of plea bargains. The outrageous sentences that are agreed upon here are the results of people who will agree to anything just to get out of this environment.
Every day is the same. Food is scarce but better than other places. Asking for any type of outside assistance is not forbidden but is frowned upon by staff. Outside assistance is anything you need that must come from outside your cell. Heaven forbid you do not accept their non-assistance, or have knowledge of any federal law concerning housing inmates.Upon questioning their methods, I've been isolated from others, put in dangerous environments because staff told several inmates that I was the reason their privileges were being removed; cussed out by staff for writing grievances on things like no law library, no adequate medical services.
Examples:
A. Dark red, gritty blood in my stool.
Answer: "That is normal and not worth the doctor's time."
B. My right leg is swollen twice the size of my left, swollen and painful, preventing much walking.
*Answer: "That was normal. Everyone has limbs bigger than the other."
C.) I asked for aspirin for a week because of infected tooth.
*Answer: Make a formal request to the doctor.
D.) My cell flooded and I asked for a week for a mop to clean it up.
*Answer: Denied
E.) My sink stopped working and I was out of drinking water for two weeks.
*Answer: They did nothing until my neighbors sink wouldn't stop working and 4 guards rushed to fix his sink the hour it broke.
There are no medically trained professionals on site except Wednesday morning when a country doctor (supposed veterinarian) comes with his nurse. Medication is passed out by untrained guards and they have given wrong medications countless times and not been able to answer ordinary questions for people taking medications.
These are only a few isolated instances that I've conveyed due to time restraints and communication barriers. Every inmate can give you countess examples of their rights being violated
.
I'm a combat veteran suffering from PTSD and they are happily doing anything to keep me in harm's way, even a guard assaulting me coming out of the video court room. Six months and not one of my multiple grievances have been answered to any degree except. "we'll pass it on''. Even when I want to press charges, I am denied my right to press charges against the correctional officer who assaulted me even though or probably because there were witnesses and the assault was caught on the surveillance camera footage.
The court system itself is a farce. Judge Kauffman maintains his office while suffering from Alzheimer's. He can recite the statutes necessary to ensure that the court record is lawful and accurate, but meanwhile, he is looking for lost buttons from his jacket. I watched as he spent 5 minutes looking for the buttons off his jacket, on the floor, in his pockets. He looked everywhere to no avail, all the while reciting the statutes to send a man to prison. I asked my public attorney at the time as to how this was possible. She broke out in uncontrollable laughter saying, " I know!! " Three times I asked her and commented on the judges condition; each time she was overcome with laughter until I finally got angry and snapped, 'This isn't funny, this is my life you're playing with'. That brought her out of her laughter, not the reality of my life in the balance.
The public defender's office works in tandem with the prosecutor's office ensuring that the public defenders do as little as legally possible. The judge asks two questions for a convicted person to answer upon sentencing:
1.) Did your lawyer do everything you asked them to do?
2.) Did your lawyer do anything you did not want them to do?
The answers are:
a) yes (because we are to ignorant of the law to know what to ask and to tell them to do)
b) no (because they will only do what you ask them to do)
Examples:
1.)A gentleman asked his public defender to file a prepared motion signifying that his attorney was using his ignorance of the law as a means of not offering him adequate counsel. The public defender refused to file the motion and the judge refused to force him to do so even though it was unlawful not to file the motion.
2.)My own public defender was telling me to be nice to the judge because it was not prudent to not do so. I told her if the judge is a problem, we will just file for a change of judge. she said, "oh, do you want to change the judge? ". I said " no, but I'd like for you to at least offer it!" I asked about veterans court, mental health court and drug treatment court. She said that " we don't have to offer any of those even though they are available." I asked her for her opinion on how the prosecutor was using his authority and she said he has the power to do as he wishes and she is in complete agreement with the way he is using it. I asked if she wanted to be a prosecutor and she smiled and nodded yes.
These are only a couple examples of the court's transgression. It is ridiculous how untethered they are from the moral right, from the judges all the way down to the uneducated guards.u
A.)They denied a bondsman to come and bail me out simply because 'they don't like me'.
B.)They are now refusing to hand out sheets because they said too many sheets are being torn up. Therefore, people are lying on plastic padded mats with nothing but a wool blanket.
C.)I haven't had a pillow since I have been here for 6 months.
D.)The law library is equipped with 2 books from the mid-90's and a computer from the 90's running windows '95, and the software is 2005 statutes. Nothing newer.
E.)After I waived my preliminary hearing, the prosecutor did the following acts that are against Missouri State Statues:
1.) Added charges
2.) Amended charges
3. Enhanced charges
This institution is destroying people's lives from the inside, victims whose voices cannot be heard beyond the concrete and steel that is holding them captive.
The legals authorities in Pettis County, Missouri, are not changing unless they are exposed and stopped. These are the crimes, this is the real war on crime.
-written by current inmate at the Pettis County Jail; Pretrial detainee; non-violent offender
*This article is no where near everything that has gone on illegally in the county. We have much more to share!