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For circuit court judges, that’s generally not a good thing, particularly for those with ambition. Privette has ambition. He has applied to join the Court of Appeals.

In late July, in a decision that drew statewide headlines, the Court of Appeals overturned Privette in a case involving the new Eleven Point State Park in Oregon County. Privette had previously ruled that the Department of Natural Resources didn’t have the authority to buy the 4,200 acres in southeast Missouri and turn it into a state park.

The appeals court, in a unanimous ruling, said Privette got the law wrong. The park has been preserved.

Now the same court is asking Privette to explain himself in a case that is much more personal. The appeals court last week issued a “stop order� to Privette, barring him from taking any action in a contempt of court case he filed against Oregon County Circuit Clerk Betty Grooms. The story, laid out in court records, reads like a small-town soap opera, with a judge driven by personal conflicts playing the main character.

The story starts in November 2018, when Grooms, a Republican, won the race for circuit clerk over Alice Bell, a Democrat. Bell was a deputy clerk in the office and continued to work there after she lost the election. Three years later, in November 2021, Bell married Privette, the presiding judge of the 37th Judicial Circuit, which covers Howell, Oregon, Shannon and Carter counties. Privette, a Republican, was first appointed a judge by Gov. Mike Parson in 2018.

Circuit clerks and judges tend to work closely together. Last December, Bell was scheduled to be the court clerk in a civil case in Privette’s courtroom. Because the clerk and judge are married, officials from the Office of Supreme Court Administrator advised Grooms that she should replace Bell on that case with another deputy clerk.

When Grooms tried to do so, Privette said in open court that “he would have the sheriff remove Betty from the courtroom if she insisted on replacing Alice Bell as his courtroom clerk in that pending civil case,� according to court records.

So Grooms stood down.

Fast forward to May. Privette asked Grooms to provide him with a spreadsheet of all criminal cases over the past three years, as well as a breakdown of court costs and the outstanding bills for jail stays, called board bills. Many rural judges care deeply about how well they are recouping the costs tied to the American court system — spending far too much time serving as collectors of back-door taxes than purveyors of justice. In 2019, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that judges could not threaten defendants with more jail time in an attempt to collect the bills for previous stays behind bars.

Grooms provided Privette hundreds of pages of documents, but apparently not in the form he preferred. So in late August, the judge did something highly unusual: he asked an assistant prosecutor in Howell County to file a criminal contempt of court charge against Grooms for not providing him a spreadsheet. That case is now before Privette. He is trying to be, so to speak, judge and jury over the political opponent of his wife.

Grooms hired an attorney, David Duree, of O’Fallon, Illinois. He has a bit of experience in the judge-vs.-clerk racket. Duree represents Lincoln County Clerk Karla Allsberry, who won a dispute that went all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court when the presiding judge in that county, just north of St. Louis, tried to improperly strip her of her office.

Duree has asked for a change of judge in the case of Privette vs. Grooms, citing the obvious conflicts of interest.

“Judge Privette is attempting to remove Betty from office by initiating these contempt proceedings in the hope that his wife, Alice Bell, will then be appointed to fill Betty’s remaining four-year term,� he alleged in a motion for a new judge.

Privette denied the motion, as well as a motion to dismiss the claim. So Duree went to the Court of Appeals, which has now told Privette to stop all action in the case — unless that action is to dismiss it. The appeals court has asked Privette to explain himself.

On Friday, he did so.

“In early 2022, the Sheriffs of both Oregon and Howell County complained to Judge Privette that (Grooms) would not certify cost bills,� wrote Assistant Howell County Prosecutor Heath Hardman on behalf of Privette. “As a result, the Counties/Sheriffs were not being reimbursed tens of thousands of dollars for board bills. ... Judge Privette was left with little choice but to take public action to see that (Grooms) executed her statutorily required duty to prepare cost bills in criminal cases.�

In his response to the appeals court, Privette calls it “pure unfounded speculation� that the case has anything to do with his wife. He denies he has a conflict of interest.

As Privette waits to hear if he will be a finalist for the Court of Appeals opening, perhaps his latest legal filing will serve as his unofficial job application. All he has to do to win his promotion is convince the Court of Appeals judges that he is above the law.

Good luck with that.