��ѿ��ý

Malin, who cares deeply about civil rights, wanted to see the documentation explaining how local and federal authorities were working together and what they were doing with the seized assets. In ��ѿ��ý, the city’s police department denied its task force existed. (It did).

Everywhere that Malin filed requests, in big cities and in rural outposts like Audrain and Cole counties, governments refused to provide the records.

Malin then enlisted the help of Dave Roland, co-founder and executive director of the . They filed Sunshine Law lawsuits throughout the state and started recording win after win. Judges found that governments were “knowingly and purposefully” violating the state’s transparency law, which is supposed to allow citizens a look behind closed doors in their governments.

Ten years later, the battle continues because government officials in Missouri don’t take the Sunshine Law seriously.

On Monday, Malin and Roland filed a motion for civil contempt against the Cole County Prosecuting Attorney’s office, which still has not followed a judge’s order to provide Malin the documents he requested. In the time since Malin asked for those records, he has graduated from law school, worked in the nation’s capital, coached debate at his alma mater, Marquette High School in Chesterfield, and joined the Pedroli Law firm.

In the Cole County case, a judge long ago ruled in Malin’s favor. The former county prosecutor, Mark Richardson, bungled the case so badly that it cost taxpayers more than . But even after paying up, the county still refused to provide the records. It lost three separate appeals. The Missouri Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Dan Green last July ordered the prosecutor’s office to comply.

A few records have trickled in, Roland says. But the prosecutor’s office, being represented in the case by private attorneys, still hasn’t complied with a monthly log required by the court to show progress in producing the records.

“We’re tired of it,” Roland says. “It’s been 10 years since Aaron asked for these records. It is time to get this taken care of.”

For Malin, the case is symbolic of a serious problem with the Sunshine Law. Across Missouri, cities, counties, prosecutors, state lawmakers, attorneys general and governors have all been accused of refusing to provide records in various lawsuits.

“This case and many others unfortunately show that Missouri’s Sunshine Law on paper is very strong, but its enforcement is very weak,” Malin says.

It doesn’t help when the state office that is supposed to enforce the Sunshine Law — the attorney general — has a shoddy record itself. Last year, taxpayers paid more than $250,000 to cover a fine and attorney fees racked up by former Attorney General Josh Hawley, now a U.S. senator, over his office’s use of private emails to try to avoid transparency laws.

And the current attorney general, Andrew Bailey, is just now getting his office requests that were taking more than a year to respond to — in part because Missouri’s other U.S. senator, Eric Schmitt, had such a bad Sunshine Law record when he was the attorney general.

Locally, Malin’s boss, attorney Mark Pedroli, recently filed a lawsuit against ��ѿ��ý County for its failure to produce records showing it prepared a plan for possible widespread euthanasia at the animal control center. In ��ѿ��ý, a judge last year found that the city purposely withheld “use-of-force” records in its jail.

In the 10 years since Malin started filing his Sunshine Law requests, the disrespect for transparency in Missouri has gotten worse, even as he and his lawyer have tallied legal wins. The records Malin long ago requested are of less use to him today. But getting them has become a necessary quest if the Sunshine Law is ever going to be enforced in the Show-Me State.

“What a huge demonstration of incompetence and a massive waste of taxpayer money,” Malin says. “Whatever they’re hiding, it seems to be worth an awful lot to them.”