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Thompson: Cole County is lagging behind when it should be leading

By Locke Thompson

To many Missourians, the words efficiency and government do not always go together. Nowhere has that become more apparent than in the primary race for Cole County Prosecutor. The lack of efficiency and transparency in our prosecutor’s office played a large role in my decision to challenge the incumbent: Mark Richardson.

My opponent’s campaign constantly touts his years of experience and claims 12 years as the elected Cole County Prosecutor as his major qualifications for re-election. In fact, his experience has been his only talking point for the majority of the campaign. The problem is that upon closer inspection, his experience does not translate into results for the people of Cole County.

Official records from the Office of the State Courts Administrator and the Cole County Circuit Clerk state my opponent had the highest rate of case dismissal in mid-Missouri (and the eighth-highest dismissal rate in the entire state) in 2017. Since 2008, one in three criminal jury verdicts have come back with an acquittal. In the last five years, my opponent has lost four murder trials. These statistics are particularly troubling because they indicate one of two things: an inability to make appropriate charging decisions, or an inability to regularly win cases (or what is most likely a combination of the two). He has been sanctioned for failing to timely disclose evidence, fined for refusing to comply with the Missouri Sunshine Law, and is on the record in opposition to the adoption of the “Castle Doctrine” which protects every Missourian’s right to defend ourselves within our own homes. He opposes the expansion of treatment court programs that would better address the opioid crisis that is crippling our state. He refuses to utilize all available resources to quickly move criminal cases by routinely refusing to go before one of our Cole County elected judges, which creates a backlog of cases and an extra burden on Cole County taxpayers.

Locke Thompson PHOTO/FACEBOOK – LOCKE THOMPSON

Experience is only as valuable as our willingness to learn and grow from it. Under that examination, my opponent comes up short. My experience working with treatment courts in the Jasper County Prosecutor’s Office and my work with the Sexually Violent Predator and Public Corruption Units in the Attorney General’s Office has taught me a great deal about what it means to be an effective prosecutor. I have prosecuted some of Missouri’s most dangerous criminals and some of the most heinous cases. I have prosecuted almost every type of crime, from DWIs to child molesters, in counties of various sizes all around Missouri. I’m ready to bring that experience to the Cole County Prosecutors office so that all our families will feel safe in their own homes.

Cole County is not your average county; it is the seat of our state government. As such, we should be taking the lead in creating an efficient and effective model that prosecutors around the state want to emulate. Instead, we are lagging behind. It sounds nice to say that you have years of “experience,” but when you dive into the numbers, it is not the experience that Cole County, or the State of Missouri, deserves.

Thompson is a Republican candidate for Cole County prosecutor.