After reading Radley Balko's eye-opening article, How municipalities in St. Louis County, Missouri profit from poverty, which exposes the patchwork of corrupt law enforcement systems in the county, I can only come up with one solution: a general pardon for all misdemeanor offenders convicted in the county.
One need only to look at the statistics cited by Balko (multiple towns with more arrest warrants than people???) to conclude that the various municipalities highlighted in the piece are oppressing their populations via heavy-handed enforcement of minor ordinances. The purpose of this overaggressive enforcement is intended solely to fund the municipal governments which perpetrate this unjust enforcement. In particular, the fines and fees paid by the mostly poor and mostly black citizens are transferred via salaries into their more affluent, and more often white oppressors: the mayors, city councilpersons, judges, prosecutors, and police that perpetuate the oppressive and corrupt law enforcement systems.
I think all would agree that this is clearly institutional racism and it clearly must end, but the perpetuators of the current system, both black and white, will be obstacles to any reform from within, because their livelihoods depend on the current system. So reform must be imposed upon St. Louis County from outside.
Justice cannot be had on a case by case basis through the judicial system. Viewed from a "trees" perspective rather than a "forest" perspective, the injustice in St. Louis County is hard to pinpoint. Many of the citizens caught up in the system are probably technically guilty of the offenses for which they have been convicted. They sped. They failed to use a turn signal. They did not show up in court as required. Some convictions are probably for violations that would have been prosecuted in any jurisdiction. The problem is, there is no way to separate these convictions from the massive number of enforcement actions that have served no purpose other than to put a soul-sucking burden on the citizenry.
The best and most immediate form of relief would come from a general pardon from Governor Jay Nixon. Missouri's Constitution, Article IV, Section 7 gives the governor "power to grant reprieves, commutations and pardons, after conviction, for all offenses except treason and cases of impeachment, upon such conditions and with such restrictions and limitations as he may deem proper, subject to provisions of law as to the manner of applying for pardons." I see nothing in this provision that precludes a general pardon-- a pardon of a class of individuals-- so long as the individuals are identified. Nowhere does the Missouri constitution say that the pardons must identify the names of the recipients. And in fact other Governors have from time to time used pardons and related powers generally. Perhaps the most well-known example occurred in Illinois-- a state that has a constitutional pardon provision almost identical to Missouri's-- when Governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of all death row inmates. There are many similarities to that situation and the present situation-- the existence of injustice in law enforcement and judicial process, an inability to effectively sort out those deserving of relief from those who are not, and a situation where it's more important to give relief to those suffering from injustice than to punish the guilty to the fullest extent.
Along with the general pardon, Nixon should let it be known that those communities which fail to bring their enforcement activities down to an acceptable level will have future convictions wiped out in a similar fashion. It needs to be known and understood that the days of bleeding the citizens dry to fund the monster are over.