2023 Lesson 12: Legislative Update

This is an online legal studies course. The lesson addresses 2023 amendments to the Missouri Revised Statutes. Section one examines amendments regarding the law enforcement profession, including increased penalties for doxing a law enforcement officer or family members, allowing a worker’s compensation claim for PTSD, providing peer counseling programs, offering vaccinations against diseases to which officers may be exposed when responding to a bioterrorism event, increasing the minimum required number of hours of basic training for POST certification, providing a reimbursement for the cost of basic training tuition, requiring police chiefs to take a special training course, clarifying and expanding the conduct that can result in discipline of a licensed peace officer, and changes to law enforcement funding, benefits, and certain residency requirements.

Section two examines changes in the drug laws, including prohibitions against drug masking products, legalizing products that test for the presence of fentanyl, allowing qualified first responders to stock and administer new FDA-approved drugs or devices that block the effects of an opioid overdose, background checks for those involved in marijuana facilities, and repealing industrial hemp statutes.

Section three examines amendments that help protect minors and crime victims, including requiring those with custody of a minor to report the minor missing within two hours of such a determination, requiring law enforcement to immediately submit identifying information of a missing minor to NCMEC and institute a proper investigation, requiring disclosure of certain otherwise confidential information about minors to law enforcement, requiring background checks on adults who attend K-12 classes that include K-12 students, requiring judges to consider certain factors before setting bail or conditions of release, and allowing law enforcement agencies to close records relating to investigative techniques, tip lines, and suspicious activity reports.

Section four examines changes to general criminal offenses, including stealing or damaging an ATM or its contents, stealing delivered but unreceived packages, doxing judicial officers, intending to kill an unknown person or class of persons but killing someone else, interfering with the transportation of livestock, and using electronic devices while operating a vehicle.

Section five examines miscellaneous amendments relevant to law enforcement, including law enforcement’s new duty and ability to help proactively identify those driving without automobile insurance, the calculation of jail time credit, additional requirements surrounding the evaluation, report, release, and treatment of a defendant who may have a mental disease or defect, and removal of the six-year time limit for updating background checks by reporting new arrests of those under the authority of an entity enrolled in the state or federal Rap Back program.