Missouri prosecutors called it the ‘Make Murder Legal Act.’ Lawmakers voted it down
A Missouri Senate committee on Thursday voted down a bill that would expand the state’s self-defense law in a way that prosecutors termed “legalizing murder.”
The bill sponsored by Sen. Eric Burlison, a Battlefield Republican, would grant wide latitude to shooters who claim they killed because they were in danger.
Suspects in shootings are required to raise a self-defense claim to prosecutors, who must then prove at trial that there was no threat. Burlison, who is running for Congress, proposed a measure that would relieve those who threaten to shoot of that responsibility by ensuring a “presumption of reasonableness.” Shooters would then be given immunity from prosecution.
Two Republican Senators, Jason Bean of Holcomb and Lincoln Hough of Springfield, joined two Democrats in voting down the measure 4-3 in the Senate Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety Committee on Thursday.
Several law enforcement groups, including the state’s largest police unions, testified against the bill this month.
“I refer to it as the ‘Make Murder Legal Act,’” said Stoddard County Prosecutor Russell Oliver, of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. “Basically what this does is make it where so long as the person is dead, you automatically have immunity because there’s not someone else to even say what had happened.”
Other critics said the bill would open the door to racial violence and vigilantism, citing self-defense claims in killings of unarmed Black men or boys such as Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin.
Sen. Brian Williams, a University City Democrat and the first Black man elected to the Senate in two decades, called it the “most offensive piece of legislation” he had ever seen.
On Thursday, Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Springs Republican, called that claim “absolutely ridiculous” and said voting against the bill would be a “pretty significant departure” from lawmakers’ history of supporting Second Amendment rights.
Last year, the General Assembly passed a new gun law also sponsored by Burlison that prohibits state and local police from cooperating with federal agents on a variety of federal gun laws. Its constitutionality is being challenged in a case pending before the Missouri Supreme Court.
The immunity bill drew the support this month of U.S. Senate candidate Mark McCloskey, who said it would prevent prosecutions like his. A St. Louis attorney, McCloskey and his wife Patricia were charged with felony weapons violations in 2020 after waving guns as a crowd of peaceful police brutality protesters made their way past their home.
He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault last summer and weeks later received a pardon from Gov. Mike Parson. The Supreme Court this week put his law license on probation because he told reporters after the conviction that he’d “do it again.”