It's been more than 15 months since a group of protesters disrupted the state Senate's debate during the last weeks of the 2014 legislative session - but none of the 23 pastors charged in that case has gone to trial.
They were part of what they called a "Rally for dignity" on May 6 last year, where nearly 300 people rallied in the Capitol Rotunda and urged Missouri lawmakers to expand the Medicaid program as envisioned by the federal Affordable Care Act.
The Legislature's Republican leadership has been reluctant to consider the idea, arguing it's not financially sustainable in the long run.
A part of the Rally for Dignity group then went to the state Senate's upper gallery and disrupted the Senate's debate for nearly an hour.
Capitol Police arrested 23 of the demonstrators for trespassing and, in August 2014, Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson charged the pastors with first-degree trespassing and obstructing government operations.
The charges said the demonstrators "purposely obstructed and impaired and hindered the performance of a governmental function, namely Senate actions on the floor of the Missouri State Senate ... by the use of force and chanting and singing loudly."
The trespassing charges said the 23 pastors "knowingly remained unlawfully upon real property located at the Senate Gallery in the Missouri Capitol," even after the Capitol Police gave a verbal notice of trespassing.
Both charges are misdemeanors.
The scheduled Sept. 10 trial for the Rev. John Bennett of Jefferson City was delayed this week because of scheduling conflicts in the prosecutor's office with another trial in a separate felony case.
Judge Dan Green told both sides Wednesday morning to return to court on Sept. 30 to set a trial date for Bennett's case - or for all 23 cases.
"It's my intention that these cases all be tried together," Green told Richardson's staff and defense attorneys Jay Barnes and Rod Chapel, "because the facts of the case would warrant it."
Barnes objected to the prosecutor's asking for all 23 defendants to be combined into one case - especially since his request for that joint case had been denied last year.
"Where would we hold a trial with all 23 defendants at the same time?" Barnes asked Green.
The judge told the prosecutors office to make a formal written motion to combine the 23 cases into one by Sept. 16, which would give Barnes and Chapel two weeks to respond before the Sept. 30 hearing.
Richardson told Green joining the cases seemed like a good idea, based on information learned in taking depositions.
But, Barnes told Green, "He didn't take the depositions of any defendants."
Last year, Barnes and Chapel filed an eight-page motion to dismiss, arguing the protesters stayed in the gallery and there was no threat of force to the senators on the floor below - and the protesters didn't violate the statutes used to charge them.
The motion noted the obstruction charge requires "the use or threat of violence, force, or physical interference or obstacle" to the proceedings.
But, the lawyers argued, Richardson's charges only allege chanting and singing, which is "auditory interference (and) there is no allegation that anything other than noise disrupted any proceedings."
The trespass charge requires the prosecutor to prove the defendants knowingly entered and remained unlawfully in the building, and that they were given a "notice against trespass."
Since the Senate Gallery is a public place, the lawyers said Green should dismiss the charges because "the Probable Cause statement failed to specify any state statute or other law which would make the Defendants' continued presence in the Senate Gallery "unlawful.'"
Green denied the motion to dismiss so, at some point, there will be at least one trial for the 23 defendants.
"I'm not opposed to trying one or two cases, and seeing how similar they are," Green told the lawyers Wednesday.