ST. LOUIS (AP) - Homicides are in the rise in St. Louis, and city officials are increasingly turning to the federal government for help.
The U.S. Attorney's office in St. Louis has issued federal charges in dozens of gun possession cases since an amendment to the Missouri Constitution made it difficult to obtain state charges against convicted felons caught with guns.
Police Chief Sam Dotson said he also is taking some homicide cases to U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan in part because he believes federal judges and juries are tougher on crime.
"If I have a choice, and there is a nexis to a federal crime, I'll take it to federal courts because I have better outcomes in federal courts," Dotson said. "There is more consistency in sentencing from the federal courts, and defendants must serve 85 percent of their sentence. I'm dealing with a state court where a guy can shoot at a cop and get (probation)."
Callahan said the increasing crime rate in the city and the passage of Amendment 5, passed by the Missouri Legislature in 2014, is evidence of a state legislature with a "complete disconnect with urban violence."
St. Louis has already seen nearly 90 killings in 2015, about a 45 percent increase compared with last year. And homicides in 2014 jumped by about 30 percent compared with 2013.
None of the cases has resulted in an indictment so far. Callahan said he expected indictments to begin coming in "soon."
Callahan said his office was not taking cases that Circuit Attorney Joyce's office could prosecute. Joyce said only about 2 percent of violent crimes are prosecuted by the feds.
"The U.S. attorney has the resources when murders occur within another conspiracy, he can give an attorney one file to work on, and there's no state prosecutor with that kind of resources," Joyce said.
Missouri voters passed Amendment 5, declaring the right to keep and bear arms "unalienable." Backers say the intent was not to make it harder to get charges to stick against convicted felons caught with guns. Still, Dotson and Joyce say it has closed off a way of getting guns out of the hands of felons through state courts.
Callahan's office has issued charges in about 70 gun cases that Joyce said she could not have issued because of Amendment 5, Joyce said.
"The feds have really saved the day and taken all of these Amendment 5 cases," she said.