If you ask residents of St. Louis County who is the most important or powerful county official, most would probably say the county executive, but they would be wrong. This is because there are two sentences that can instantly change your life. The first is “you’re under arrest,” and the second sentence, which trumps the first, is “the warrant is refused.” When a prosecutor refuses a police officer’s request for a warrant, the prosecutor nullifies the arrest. The power to decide who gets charged and for what crime rests exclusively with prosecutors. It’s this prosecutorial discretion that makes prosecutors more powerful than county executives, mayors or chiefs of police. It’s this prosecutorial discretion, not judges and juries, that plays the largest role in determining who goes to prison, for what and for how long.
Of course, for black people, these questions are paramount because of how we experience criminal justice. If you are white and rich, America has a criminal justice system; if you’re black or poor, America has a justice system that’s criminal. As a community, we tend to focus on the police, but in reality the war on black people – especially, black men – that produced an epidemic of mass incarceration has been waged as much by prosecutors, and they have been ruthlessly effective, resulting in the decimation of the black community. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, blacks represent 12 percent of Missouri’s population but 39 percent of the prison population. Incumbent St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch has played his role in creating this racial disparity. According to the ACLU of Missouri, which has been researching McCulloch’s record in advance of the August 7 Democratic primary, blacks represent only 24 percent of St. Louis County’s population, yet make up 67 percent of the jail population.
These racial disparities are not accidental; they are a direct result of how prosecutors use their prosecutorial discretion. These are almost always white prosecutors making these decisions that disproportionately impact black people; in 2015 the Center for Technology and Civic Life reported that 95 percent of elected prosecutors in the U.S. were white. The vast majority of all criminal cases don’t go to trial; they’re plea- bargained. In most cases, the prosecutor decides on the charge, determines the guilt and recommends the sentence, reducing the judge to a clerk who processes the transaction.
Bob McCulloch is the prototypical white prosecutor who dominates these offices. Since he was first elected in 1991 – before his Democratic primary challenger, Wesley Bell, was even old enough to vote – he has been reflexively pro-police and anti-black. For decades he has been one of the most reviled public figures in the black community. His handling of the Darren Wilson case in Ferguson brought McCulloch national notoriety and revulsion, and the nation has not forgotten it, as Bell’s campaign is receiving national support. Democracy For America, the progressive organization founded by Howard Dean, endorsed him, and Color Of Change PAC, the political action committee of the nation’s largest online racial justice group, launched ad buys for Bell.
Closer to home, the ACLU of Missouri, while not endorsing Bell, is waging a public education campaign about McCulloch’s job performance, especially in terms of cash bail for misdemeanor offenses (which McCulloch loves) and diversion programs (where McCulloch is failing). For example, since 2012, 2,775 people being prosecuted by McCulloch faced cash bail for misdemeanors, with an average amount of $445; and in that same time frame, 5,536 people prosecuted by McCulloch faced pre-trial detention of one to five days for a misdemeanor. As for diversion programs, only 99 people have been enrolled in the pre-charge, alternative drug court program McCulloch started in 2014, and only 36 people – on average, only nine people per year – have completed the program.
The candidate being championed by progressives, both local and national, does not have the ideal legal resume in terms of experience. Bell’s experience as a prosecutor is limited to municipal courts that hear low-level cases, and as Velda City municipal judge he ran the sort of predatory court that contributed to the Ferguson unrest. He admits to participating in the predatory system but now knows that it’s wrong; he told The American he was “converted” to cash bail reform as a way to diminish mass incarceration. And given that he was elected to the Ferguson City Council while the city’s consent decree with the Department of Justice was being negotiated and then implemented, he has direct experience of participating in progressive reforms. Admittedly, Bell’s experience in making court reforms, in Velda City and Ferguson, were both done under court order, so his progressive champions may need to pressure him, if he is elected, and demand that he be proactive in cleaning up McCulloch’s court. A template is ready at hand in Philadelphia, where a new prosecutor, Larry Krasner, made clear in a memo to staff what is top priorities are: “to end mass incarceration and bring balance back to sentencing.”
Whatever his limitations may be, for many of us Bell has the most important qualification for St. Louis County prosecutor: He’s not Bob McCulloch. Also, he is black, in a criminal justice system where criminally few black prosecutors are making charging decisions about a disproportionate number of black people. We believe if Bell is elected that black county residents can have greater confidence in being treated fairly if they become involved in the criminal justice system, and that police misconduct will have a greater chance of being prosecuted. If you’re a black voter with any regard for your liberty and well-being – and those of your family, friends and neighbors – you have only one choice. If you’re any voter who believes in greater racial equity in criminal justice, you too have only one choice. The St. Louis American strongly endorses Wesley Bell for St. Louis County Prosecutor.
