ST. LOUIS — For roughly 20 months, city police have asked the St. Louis circuit attorney to identify what evidence the department can purge from an overflowing drug vault.
And for roughly 20 months, the circuit attorney’s office either said it would respond and didn’t, or ignored the requests altogether.
On Monday, a judge ruled police don’t have to wait any longer.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner’s office argued in a filing last week that it was notified for the first time on Oct. 24 about police’s request to destroy evidence in roughly 6,890 drug cases logged between 2015 and 2019, and it needed more time to review which investigations were still open.
But emails and court testimony on Monday showed the city crime lab tried for more than a year and a half to get prosecutors to compile the routine list, which mostly would have included drug cases for which a three-year statute of limitations had passed. Their attempts were met largely with silence.
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Circuit Judge Jason M. Sengheiser ruled in the police department’s favor, calling it an “unexplained delay and mismanagement of the CAO.â€
“Normally, a hearing like this isn’t even necessary,†he wrote. “However, there has been nothing but silence and delay from the CAO. The court is simply not willing to risk the health and safety of people working in the crime laboratory because the CAO wants to look into old cases it likely cannot prosecute anyway due to the statute of limitations. Moreover, if it could prosecute those cases, it certainly should have told someone since there have been numerous inquiries since March 2021.â€
Evidence envelopes in the police department’s drug vault are stacked high on walls and stuffed in lockers and boxes, according to photos. Assistant crime lab director Mary Beth Karr said workers have been forced to store drugs in other parts of the lab, putting it at risk of growing mold and causing other health hazards.
“We are in a situation where there are so many drugs, something needs to happen in order for us to function as a crime lab,†Karr testified.
Karr first emailed the circuit attorney’s chief warrant officer in March 2021, asking to compile a list of open cases involving drug evidence from up to 2018.
The warrant officer, Chris Hinckley, said he’d check with others and get back to her. He eventually sent her the name of the circuit attorney’s chief investigator, Robert Ogilvie, and asked her to fill him in.
Karr sent examples of reports they’d compiled in the past. She followed up on April 20, 2021, to see if he’d made progress, and Ogilvie responded he was waiting on “approval to release the information.â€
A month later, Karr emailed Hinckley again.
“Can you help with this? We are drowning in drugs,†she said in an email on May 19.
“Drowning in drugs ... interesting! I’ll see what I can do,†he replied.
Karr checked again on Nov. 19, 2021, and got no response, according to the email thread. Then, on May 3, 2022, she forwarded the exchange to her supervisor, Maj. Eric Larson, who said he met with Hinkley, who “made no commitments or offered any timeline for assistance.â€
On Aug. 4, interim police Chief Michael Sack sent a letter to Gardner directly by mail and email asking her office to compile a list before Sept. 25, saying the city planned to file a destruction request in October.
The city then filed the destruction request on Oct. 6, and Gardner’s office finally responded Oct. 28, asking for more time to review the cases because it had only been informed of the destruction request four days earlier, according to evidence in Monday’s hearing.
When Sengheiser asked assistant circuit attorney Rob Huq why the office failed to respond to repeated Karr’s inquiries, he said: “I cannot speak to that.â€
In a statement following the hearing, Gardner’s office said, “In order for justice to be served, the CAO needs to ensure evidence necessary for cases that remain open or have a possibility of appeal is not destroyed.â€
