ST. LOUIS • Travis Burnett never showed up for his Oct. 18 court date.

It triggered an arrest warrant, dated that day and signed in ink by Associate Circuit Judge Barbara T. Peebles.

But Peebles was not in court that day, either. She was on the other side of the world, on a two-week vacation in China.

Burnett's court date came at a time of extraordinary autonomy for Peebles' court clerks.

While the judge was gone in October, clerks handled at least 350 cases — dismissing five, refusing to dismiss at least one and deciding that as many as 18 arrest warrants should be issued — a Post-Dispatch investigation revealed.

They also continued more than 300 other cases to later dates, telling defense lawyers there would be no bail reductions while Peebles was gone. That potentially added weeks of jail time for defendants seeking to make a case for release pending trial.

Many of the actions were taken using a stamp bearing Peebles' signature.

"I think it's as illegal as hell," said defense lawyer David Stokely, who saw at least one of Peebles' clerks continue some cases and dismiss others.

St. Louis Circuit Court Presiding Judge Steven Ohmer called the conduct of both Peebles and her clerks "wrong." He blamed an "overall lack of management and supervision."

Reached Thursday by phone, Peebles said: "I cannot make any comment about any of this." She noted that some of the cases are pending.

Typically, judges schedule their work around vacations, arranging for colleagues to handle matters that cannot be deferred. Peebles did get other judges to cover part of her work while she was gone Oct. 11 to Oct. 21: recently arrested inmates who must appear in front of a judge. But not the rest.

Ohmer said the Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline, which investigates complaints about judges, is aware of the situation. The commission does not comment on pending matters. St. Louis Circuit Circuit Judge David Dowd is the chairman.

Ohmer said he mulled the rarely used "nuclear option" of removing Peebles from Division 25, which handles the initial stages of criminal cases.

Circuit Clerk Jane Schweitzer said Peebles granted too much authority to the deputy clerks, who merely followed orders and practices established by Peebles and past judges.

The courtoom clerks, who generally keep track of paperwork and are not lawyers, are supervised by Schweitzer's office but as a practical matter work for the judges.

Most of the actions at issue were taken by a deputy clerk, Whitney Tyler, Schweitzer said. "What I'm seeing here is a young woman who is trying her best to do what her judge is telling her to do," Schweitzer said.

She noted, however: "I would want my clerks to perform their duties only when the judge is available." She said anything that looks like clerks are exercising their own discretion 'should be avoided at all costs."

She also suggested that nothing happened that wouldn't have otherwise, so there was "no miscarriage of justice."

Schweitzer declined to make Tyler available for interview.

Court officials said Friday they plan to move Tyler out of Division 25 immediately, after what they described as an altercation Friday morning with Peebles' other clerk.

COMMON KNOWLEDGE

Many defense lawyers were reluctant to comment on the record for this article, for fear of angering judges. But they said that it was common knowledge that Peebles' clerks made decisions.

Asked about the clerks' actions, a spokeswoman for Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce first asked how a reporter obtained information about closed cases, which are generally confidential. The spokeswoman, Susan Ryan, then said prosecutors saw "nothing out of the ordinary. We have nothing in your questions to lead us to believe that anybody acted inappropriately."

Ohmer called the circuit attorney office's statement "disturbing."

A prosecutor later contacted Schweitzer to further investigate the reporter's access. The Post-Dispatch reviewed online court dockets and dozens of court files, checked Sheriff's Department and jail records and obtained a court order to access one case handled during Peebles' absence.

Lawyers said that Tyler, jokingly called "Judge Whitney" by some insiders, issued continuances, dismissed cases and filled out arrest warrants for defendants who failed to show up. She even argued with attorneys about actions that should be taken in cases, several said.

"It was typical for the clerk to announce 'capias' (arrest warrant) or 'dismissed' in the courtroom without the judge present, even when the judge was in town," said Mary Fox, head of the St. Louis public defender's office.

Court records back up the lawyers' observations.

Peebles' signature stamp was used to dismiss five cases, involving kidnapping, unlawful use of a weapon, property damage, domestic violence and theft. Several have been refiled by prosecutors.

According to clerks' notes, Tyler recommended 18 arrest warrants. Not all were actually issued. One case was dismissed, some were continued.

In a motion to recall an arrest warrant, lawyer Rodney Holmes wrote that he told both the court clerk and the prosecutor that his client, Phillip Atkins, was absent from court because he was already in the St. Louis County jail.

"Counsel was informed that Your Honor would not be present and that a warrant would be issued," Holmes wrote in a court document.

In an interview, he complained that Tyler made the decision to issue the warrant even though Atkins' failure to appear was beyond his control.

Although the Peebles' warrants were dated while she was away, she told court officials that she actually signed them all upon her return.

Court records, both on paper and online, reflect that warrants were issued while she was gone, but electronic records of the warrants, requested by the Post-Dispatch, show they were activated after she returned.

Regardless, Ohmer said, Tyler made the decisions to issue them. "And that's wrong."

He said various circumstances may need consideration. "That's what judging is all about," he said. "We got to make that call."

He also said that a delay in activating the warrants — 12 days in one case — was unacceptable.

Circuit Judge Patrick Robb, who is on the Missouri Supreme Court Committee on Criminal Instructions, said a judge could sign an arrest warrant even if the judge's clerk was the only one present to verify that a defendant was not. But Robb, who works in Buchanan and Andrews counties, said it is not typical and not his own practice.

USING OWN DISCRETION?

Schweitzer insisted that Tyler was not exercising discretion but simply following Peebles' rule that when defendants failed to appear, the cases were set aside for issuance of a warrant later.

But, she allowed, "I am not happy that my clerk was placed in a position where there is the appearance that she was exercising discretion."

Peebles' clerks also issued roughly 300 continuances during her China trip, postponing cases from days to weeks. The clerks' own notes indicate that 85 continuances were attributed to a request by defendants, 70 to the court and 120 to prosecutors.

For those out on bail, the delay made little difference. But for others, Peebles' vacation could have meant waiting extra weeks behind bars, said lawyers and judges.

Cedric Martin, 34, was due in court Oct. 20 on a weapon charge after allegedly carrying a concealed .45-caliber handgun and lunging at an officer in a police station cell. Records correctly show that he had not yet obtained a lawyer, and claim he asked for a continuance. But Martin could not have been in court, according to city and sheriff's records that indicate he never left the Medium Security Institution.

Most of those behind bars did have lawyers to appear in court in their place. But the Post-Dispatch found roughly a dozen defendants who did not appear to have been in court when they were said to have requested a delay.

Decisions to assign the continuance requests to various parties — prosecutor, court or defendant — were apparently made by clerks.

"They can't be making that judgment," said Ohmer. "That, again, is judging."

Asked if falsely attributing a continuance to a defendant could be construed as a crime, Ohmer said it "could very well be." He said it would be a "hard call" and that, "Those kind of crimes are difficult to prove."

Schweitzer said that the defendants' cases would have been continued anyway so "there was no need to bring them over."

Thomas Williams' public defender asked Oct. 25 for his crack cocaine charge to be dismissed, complaining that prosecutors took too long to obtain an indictment. Peebles, who returned from vacation Oct. 24, had left again for two days of judicial training. Tyler continued the case.

Fox said the lawyer, who works for her (and whose name she wanted to protect from reprisals), was so frustrated from watching clerks make decisions that he filed a motion to dismiss the charge. It was a handwritten note that read, in part: "The court clerk denied this motion without a judge present and without allowing defense counsel an opportunity to argue the motion."

Fox said that the memo was handed to Tyler. But it was not in the court file when the Post-Dispatch reporter checked.

Schweitzer said Tyler did not deny the dismissal but simply postponed the matter. But Ohmer disagreed, saying that the continuance was, in effect, a denial. Peebles dismissed the case herself more than a month later, on Nov. 30.

JUDGE 'SHOCKED'

When confronted by other judges and Schweitzer upon her return from the trip, Peebles reportedly denied that her clerks had acted improperly, and vowed to do better.

With just two months until Peebles was to change division assignments anyway, the matter was considered settled until the Post-Dispatch began examining what happened in her absence.

Ohmer said he had been unaware of the quantity of cases Tyler handled until he saw the dockets before a Dec. 8 meeting with a reporter.

"It's unbelievable," he said. "I'm still shocked."

Although a Peebles email said she planned the China trip in 2010, she told Ohmer and Schweitzer in a meeting Dec. 12, prompted by the Post-Dispatch questions, that she did not receive her visa until weeks before the trip.

She also said that she asked Tyler to try to move cases scheduled for that period but Tyler told her the docket was already set. Peebles then instructed her clerks to continue cases in her absence.

Tyler said she had tried to call Peebles in China but couldn't get through, according to an account of the meeting by Ohmer and Schweitzer. They said Tyler told them she consulted with Peebles by text message and was told to dismiss cases if prosecutors had requested too many delays. Peebles couldn't recall receiving the texts, they said, but told them it was true if Tyler said so.

Associate Circuit Judge Calea Stovall-Reid said in an interview last week that in some circumstances a clerk could be instructed to just continue a case. But, she noted, "You're better off just having somebody (another judge) cover."

Judge John Garvey, who did cover one day of Peebles' cases involving newly confined prisoners, said he asked Tyler if he needed to do anything else for her that day and was told no.

Asked why Peebles did not just have other judges handle all her work, Ohmer said she should have. He also said there may have been some "animosity" between Peebles and the other judges that made her reluctant to ask.

Ohmer said he considered — but decided against — removing Peebles from that division after the full scale of the problem was revealed. It would be the kind of action he said has not happened in 30 years. Next month, she will move to a civil trial division as planned.

Said Ohmer: "I just hope she understands the seriousness of this."