Appeals Court affirms Dunklin County court decision

Thursday, April 17, 2008
Deanna Coronado

Those people who were at one time unable to travel the St. Francis levee on the Missouri side, just south of its beginning near Highway 84 West to its end near the Ben Cash exit north of Senath, will perhaps be glad to know that the gates that once prevented them from doing so will be left open permanently.

The Missouri's Southern District Court of Appeals recently affirmed the opinion of former Division II Judge Dan Crawford, who on Dec. 13, 2006, ordered Pat Skelton of Dunklin County to take down gates he had previously erected which obstructed the road on top of the St. Francis levee.

According to Dunklin County Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Sokoloff, in December 2006, Skelton was tried before Crawford who convicted the rural Senath man of obstructing a township road.

Skelton had leased some farm land from the Drainage District, but according to prosecutors, Skelton was informed that he could not block off a road the Township was responsible for maintaining.

During the trial, Crawford suspended the imposition of sentence, but ordered the gates be removed within 45 days.

"After the 45 day time frame, Skelton had not responded to the judge's order, so we asked that his probation be revoked," Sokoloff said. "At that time the judge did revoke his probation, he was fined and given a 10 day jail sentence, which was suspended under the condition he follow through with the judge's ruling within 15 days."

By late April 2007, the gates finally did come down under the direction of Independence Township.

However, the decision was not final in Skelton's eyes.

Immediately following Crawford's ruling, Skelton and his attorney Lynn Newsum Bock of New Madrid started the appeal process through the Southern District Court of Appeals.

Court records indicate that the case was filed with the court of appeals on April 17, 2007.

Ten days short of one year to the date in which the appeal was filed, the Southern District Court of Appeals made its decision and affirmed the opinion or original ruling of the Division II, Dunklin County Circuit Court.

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The court process has again been tried and retried. With all the problems concerning the flooding, maybe that should have been taken into count, but it was not. So let it be.

-- Posted by cecil210 on Fri, Apr 18, 2008, at 1:41 PM

From the original contract between the Corps of Engineers and the original land owner it states that the levee was never meant for public travel. The levee was built for flood control after the first levee broke and flooded the area in the 1940's. From this court decision, there's one important question I leave with all deeded property owners of Dunklin County? Who's property is next?

-- Posted by whoa2moa on Sun, Apr 27, 2008, at 12:41 AM