By Joe Mahr

Acknowledging gaps that can aid felony fugitives, officials from Missouri and
Illinois advocate greater efforts to hunt fugitives, alert police elsewhere and
generate more public tips.

"It is an unacceptable position to be in to have fugitives - particularly on
the more serious offenses, felonies - where they'll able to flee and be free to
commit more additional crimes," said Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Mike
Gibbons, R-Kirkwood. "We definitely need to do better."

The push for change follows a Post-Dispatch investigation published last month
that showed hundreds of thousands of felony fugitives across the country can
flee and avoid arrest. The investigation found cases of fugitives let go by
police who have gone on to rape, rob and kill.

While federal officials and advocacy groups have suggested new laws and more
grants to close some gaps, elected officials from Missouri and Illinois say
there are additional steps each state can take.

MORE HUNTING

The FBI and U.S. Marshals Service oversee task forces that help hunt fugitives,
but they can tackle only a fraction of felony warrants issued by state courts.

State Rep. Margaret Donnelly, D-St. Louis, has called for a new unit within the highway patrol to not only hunt all types of fugitives but also to determine a statewide strategy to catch those wanted for crimes.

"I really believe you do best, when you have a statewide problem, to take a coordinated approach," Donnelly said, "and the most likely place for us to get the expertise and the best coordination is in the highway patrol."

Other Missouri officials agreed on the need for more hunting, although they
said they wanted those in law enforcement to recommend how best to do it.

Officials with the Missouri Highway Patrol said they would support whatever
additional resources lawmakers provided.

Their counterparts in Illinois, the Illinois State Police, referred all
questions on fugitive policies to Gov. Rod Blagojevich. His office did not
respond to questions.

It's clear police in Illinois also lack the resources to hunt most fugitives,
said U.S. Marshal Donald Slazinik, who oversees a task force that hunts the
most serious cases.

"I know of no better crime prevention program anywhere than putting a bad guy
in jail - works every time," Slazinik said. "But we don't go hunt these people,
and they're walking the street."

UPDATING DATABASES

The FBI oversees a fugitive database that police across the country check when
they stop someone for something as routine as speeding. But in many states,
including Illinois, police routinely fail to enter warrants into the database.

Departments in Illinois often enter their felony warrants into the statewide
database run by the state police. However, unlike Missouri, state police don't
forward those warrants to the FBI. Police must do so separately.

Practices vary widely. In St. Clair County, the sheriff's department enters all
felony warrants into the FBI database. But Chicago enters only the most serious
violent crimes. Not even all robberies or sexual assaults make the cut, a
spokesman for the agency said.

Steve Brown, a spokesman for Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, said Madigan plans to review the newspaper's findings and talk with other state leaders and advocacy groups before crafting reforms.

Cara Smith, a spokeswoman for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office,
blamed the problem, in part, on Illinois' failure to fund extraditions. While
Missouri reimburses police to travel out-of-state to retrieve fugitives,
Illinois doesn't. Police often won't enter warrants into the FBI database if
they don't plan to go get the fugitives.

Smith said the state should explore federal or state aid for extraditions.

ADDING NAMES QUICKLY

Missouri may enter all of its felony warrants into the FBI database but
regularly takes more than three days - breaking FBI rules and giving fugitives
time to pass police checks elsewhere.

A Post-Dispatch analysis of Missouri Highway Patrol data found that 32,000
warrants - a third of all felonies - were entered late in 2006, including 4,000
that took longer than a month to enter.

State leaders say one solution is creating the software to transmit court data
on warrants into police fugitive databases automatically.

The St. Louis city circuit clerk's office developed software in 2001 to do the
job. Circuit Clerk Mariano Favazza said he's frustrated the state court system
hasn't adopted it for other courts.

State court officials said they should have software developed for three other
courthouses by fall.

Some elected officials support passing a state law requiring police to enter
the warrants within three days. Among them are two candidates for governor:
State Treasurer Sarah Steelman, a Republican, and Attorney General Jay Nixon, a Democrat.

GETTING PUBLIC HELP

In Florida and Delaware, nearly every warrant sent into state warrant databases
is published in Internet databases, so the public can type in names to see
who's wanted.

Both states say the database not only alerts the public but also lets citizens
e-mail tips to police.

But Missouri and Illinois, like most states, don't publish online databases of
fugitives.

Internet users can find some information about Missouri warrants through the
state court's website, but it's not easily displayed. Users must scroll through
details of past and pending cases of a defendant to find mention of unserved
warrants, and there's no place to e-mail tips to police.

Illinois' court system lacks any statewide database.

The three candidates vying to become Missouri's next attorney general are
calling for a database. Donnelly, Gibbons and state Rep. Jeff Harris,
D-Columbia, say it should be modeled with the safeguards of Florida and
Delaware, which allow police to keep secret any warrants in which publicity
would hurt the cases.

Harris said, "It allows law enforcement and the general public to know who the
bad guys are and helps law enforcement to go after them."