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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Rapist Loses Appeal At State Supreme Court

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Prosecutors do not have to prove where a crime happened to win a conviction, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the case of a man who raped his stepdaughter in St. Louis.

The man claimed his conviction should be overturned because the judge did not allow his attorney to argue that prosecutors had not proved that the rape occurred in St. Louis City rather than St. Louis County.

The man's attorney argued that the standard jury instructions, approved by the Supreme Court, require prosecutors to prove that a crime occurred in the county where the trial is held. The Supreme Court struck down its own jury instructions in its decision that the venue where an offense occurred is not subject to the same element of proof during the trial as the crime itself.

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