FEATURE Review by Paul Martin
Municipal Warrants In Missouri: Are These Things Really Legal?
In 2004, I wrote an article in The Missouri Municipal Review arguing that cities could authorize their municipal courts to issue search warrants for code enforcement purposes.1 I concluded that charter cities had such authority by virtue of their constitutional status, i.e., having all the authority of the state legislature that was not otherwise limited or denied by law. As to statutory cities, I argued that warrant authority was an implied, if not a necessary and indispensable, part of the city’s express statutory authority to enforce property code violations. But in the wake of the Missouri Supreme Court reforms following the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, that analysis, relying on the charter or the implied/essential authority of statutory cities, appears to have been misplaced. With the adoption of new rules governing municipal court operations, it seems plain that municipal courts, while created by and operating under the aegis of cities, are independent bodies that answer exclusively to the Missouri Supreme Court. As such, municipal courts would appear to have inherent authority to issue search warrants, provided the authority is exercised in accordance with governing law. The Missouri Constitution, Missouri Supreme Court Rules and Missouri statutes bear out this conclusion.
The Municipal Court’s Judicial Independence
While Rule 37 of the Missouri Supreme Court has long provided the procedures by which municipal courts operate, recent amendments have reinforced and clarified the Supreme Court’s plenary authority over municipal courts. This perspective changes the calculus for examining the legality of municipal court search warrants. Specifically, Rule 37.01, amended effective May 1, 2019, now provides that “Rule 37 governs the procedure in all courts of this state having original jurisdiction of ordinance violations.” Rule 37.04, as amended effective July 1, 2017, grants the presiding judge of the circuit court “general administrative authority over the judges and court personnel of all divisions of the circuit court hearing and determining ordinance violations within the circuit.” The same rule mandates that municipal courts “shall operate in substantial compliance with” the minimum operating standards prescribed in Appendix A to the rule. And the court’s new Operating Rule 1, effective July 1, 2019, asserts plenary authority over each municipal court’s case management automation system. The obvious conclusion is that municipal courts, while created and funded by cities, are constitutional creatures of the judiciary rather than their sponsoring cities. So, in light of the perspective that municipal courts are legally independent from their cities, we must look to the authority of the court, rather than the city, in assessing the legality of municipal search warrants. Again, we turn to Rule 37 of the Supreme Court Rules.
Article V, Section 23 of the Missouri Constitution provides that “[e]ach [judicial] circuit may have such municipal judges as provided by law …” Article V, Section 27(2)(d) which is the product of an overhaul of the Missouri court system effective in 1979, further provides:
The Municipal Court’s Inherent Warrant Authority
The jurisdiction of municipal courts shall be transferred to the circuit court of the circuit in which such municipality or major geographical area thereof shall be located and, such courts shall become divisions of the circuit court. The Missouri Constitution thus permits the creation of municipal courts that are “provided by law” and further acknowledges that such courts are subject to, and divisions of, the court of the circuit in which they are located.
Perhaps surprisingly, Rule 37 does not address search warrants, even though Rules 37.45 and 37.46 address arrest warrants. Yet we are not left without all guidance, as Rule 37.08 provides that “[i]f no procedure is specifically provided by this Rule 37, the court shall be governed by Rules 19 to 36, inclusive, to the extent not inconsistent with this Rule 37.” Rules 19 to 36 govern criminal procedure in Missouri courts, so it is plain that the Supreme Court is directing municipal
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theReview January/February 2022
