Missouri's Supreme Court this week denied Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft's request for an order blocking a St. Louis County judge from getting a wife's home address in a divorce case.
As is typical, the high court gave no reason for its action - which ends this particular legal skirmish inside one divorce case.
Attorney General Josh Hawley's office represented Ashcroft in the case, which began as part of a St. Louis County divorce case where Circuit Judge Sandra Farragut-Hemphill had ordered the husband and wife to trade home addresses, based on both parents sometimes having custody of their minor child.
However, the wife argued she shouldn't have to provide her address, since she had been part of Missouri's "Safe At Home" program since April 2016.
Lawmakers placed the program in state law in 2007. The program is "administered by the secretary of state to protect victims of domestic violence, rape, sexual assault or stalking by keeping their home addresses confidential and authorizing the use of designated addresses for such victims and their minor children," according to Assistant Attorney General Jillian Meek Mueller's May 11 paperwork seeking the Supreme Court's order.
The program provides a post office box where mail is sent, then forwarded by the secretary of state's office to the real street address.
The News Tribune generally does not identify sexual assault victims, and in this story identifies the woman in the St. Louis County divorce case only as "the woman" or "the wife."
The husband in the divorce case also is not being identified by name in this story.
However, in his response to Mueller's motion, Nathan Cohen - the husband's attorney - told the Supreme Court there had been no finding the wife was eligible for the Safe At Home program.
On Jan. 31, Farragut-Hemphill ruled the wife really was not a part of the Safe at Home program because she "did not provide a sworn statement that she has a good reason to believe that she is a victim of domestic violence and fears further violent acts from (the husband)."
Ashcroft then asked all 1,500 participants, including the wife, to re-apply using new forms.
Still, Ashcroft - through Hawley's office - has argued the Safe At Home law gives the secretary of state authority to determine who is a certified participant in the program, and the law requires that "state and local agencies and the courts accept the designated address as a program participant's address when creating a new public record."
Before the General Assembly ended its regular session May 12, lawmakers sent Gov. Eric Greitens a proposed law change that, among other things, gives the secretary of state the right to intervene in proceedings involving the Safe At Home program.
That portion of the law has an emergency clause, which means it goes into effect as soon as the governor signs it.
However, Greitens has not taken action on the proposal, but has until July 14 to do so.
Ashcroft tried to intervene in the divorce case on behalf of the Safe At Home program since Feb. 8 - after Farragut-Hemphill had ordered the wife twice to disclose her home address to the husband and to the attorney appointed to represent the couple's child.
Farragut-Hemphill denied Ashcroft's original motion to intervene, as well as the state's request for her to reconsider the decision.
The state's Eastern District appeals court declined to issue an order blocking the judge's demand for the wife's address, so Ashcroft and Hawley asked the Supreme Court to issue the order.
That's the request the seven-judge court denied Tuesday.
In April, Farragut-Hemphill ordered the wife for a third time to reveal her home address before she left the courtroom - and the wife complied.
Cohen urged the Supreme Court to deny Ashcroft's request for several reasons, including:
"Wife divulged her address to the court on April 13, 2017."
The attorney general and secretary of state should be using a different legal process.
Farragut-Hemphill's decision was sound, lawful and a correct application of the law.
The couple married in 2014 and, Cohen told the Supreme Court, the underlying divorce case - filed in January 2016 - has been contentious.