The Missouri Supreme Court has released its rationale for upholding new boundaries for the state's 163 House districts.

The opinion released Friday expands upon a one-sentence decision issued March that affirmed a map produced by a special judicial panel after the 2010 census.

The high court said those challenging the map failed to prove it was possible to draw districts that would have been more compact and equivalent in population, when considering other factors such as the federal Voting Rights Act.

Friday's opinion also said that secret meetings by the judicial panel did not violate Missouri's Sunshine Law. The Supreme Court said the open-meetings law does not apply to judges unless they're meeting in an administrative capacity, and the redistricting process was not administrative.