Incumbent Judge Carter Says Community Outreach is Important

Incumbent judge Michael E. Carter, seeking a second two-year term in the April 5 election, believes a judge should be aware of the community’s needs.

"I have a lot of ideas about what a judge means to a community," he said. "I did a thesis on it in law school, trying to have a throwback to Mayberry times, where a municipal judge is more community-oriented, focuses on outreach, and being part of the community instead of some isolated person that no one ever talks with or to. Talking in schools, just really trying to change what it means to be a municipal judge. I’ve been putting the rubber to the road in that respect."

Carter, who lives in St. Peters, is running against challengers Andrew Koor, Joel Eisenstein, Michael Kruse and Stephen Martin. Jay Lenox has withdrawn from the race, although his name will remain on the ballot. On his campaign website Carter talks about emphasizing "open communication" and making sure Wentzville’s municipal court is "more accessible to the people it serves."

Statistics indicate, he said, that 95 percent of all people who go to court are going to municipal court.

"So it’s just that much more important that those courts, since they have the most exposure, kind of try to set the tenor for how a judge should be involved in a community and know who owns the shop down the road and (know) that a new Sam’s Club is coming to the community," Carter said. "It does help if a judge has that kind of an understanding about the community and its values. When I was younger, I remember a friend of mine took a piece of bubble gum from a store, and the store owner made him sweep the parking lot for six days. Those kinds of things can only happen when everybody in the community kind of has an awareness of what the community values and desires to have going on. That kind of extends through the municipal court system, the way I’m trying to create an openness."

Carter also wants to avoid a "cookie-cutter" attitude in court, favoring an approach where each case is treated individually over one with set fines and penalties without consideration for specific circumstances.

"Each of the people who come through there, they care very much about spending two hours in court waiting for their name to be called," he said. "And even showing up there in the first place, and getting baby sitters, and missing work. I’m not saying we need to baby and coddle defendants through the process, but we should have somebody there who takes the job they are elected to do, or appointed to do, extremely seriously. And that’s to hear all the facts you can and make a proper determination about what the penalty should be."

Openness, flexibility and an awareness of the law are important qualities for being a municipal judge, Carter said. For instance, a defendant in Carter’s court objected to being ticketed for parking in front of a mailbox at 4 a.m. Someone in the court said, "That’s what it is, it’s all the time." But Carter agreed that, as the defendant said, "It doesn’t seem right."

"It seems like everybody was perplexed that I would want to break the ordinance book out and look at it," he said.

But when he checked, it said parking in front of mailboxes was forbidden between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The ticket never should have been written in the first place, he said.

"So the No. 1 qualification is somebody who is really interested in hearing argument, looking at the law, applying it and making decisions based on what the law dictates."

Carter, 39, has been a lawyer for seven years. He is also a realtor-broker and a senior lecturer at the University of Missouri St. Louis. His background includes stints as a clerk in the Missouri Western District Court of Appeals and in the Missouri Attorney General’s office, plus working as an intern for Sen. Jean Carnahan.

Carter was recently in the news for being denied the opportunity to concurrently run for municipal judge in St. Peters and Wentzville. He said there are numerous instances of judges in the area who are serving two cities at the same time and does not agree with the interpretation of the law that prevented him from filing as a candidate for judge in St. Peters.

"The real take on it is you can’t run for state senator and governor at the same time--common sense stuff like that," he said. "This really posed no problem, but I don’t really have any interest at all in going to court over it. It’s not something I wanted to fight about."

Carter will have his own day in court on April 11, six days after the election, when he faces a misdemeanor charge of driving while intoxicated and speeding. He acknowledged the court date and said, "Don’t worry about it" before he said, "When I say ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I’m telling people not to worry about it. It’s not that I’m not worried about it."

Carter believes another term is in order because he done everything he promised he would do when first elected, including helping people better understand the legal system. He has spoken at high schools and invited Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts into court to observe. He has also made it clear that the court is not just in place to render fines and take in money, and said he has received "unsolicited feedback" that people appreciate the fact that he has made that distinction.

"The court is about justice. It’s not a business," he said. "We’re not there to make revenue. We’re there to dispense justice according to the law."

Carter can be followed on Twitter and Facebook at Vote4Carter.