Melesa Johnson, left, and Tracey Chappell are candidates to become Jackson County prosecutor (campaign photos submitted).Public anxiety about crime is fueling interest in the campaign to succeed longtime Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker
Republican Tracey Chappell and Democrat Melesa Johnson are on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The candidates have attacked each other’s qualifications on social media and in person in the final stretch of the campaign.
That political drama is playing out amid mounting concerns among voters that criminal charges aren’t being filed on property crimes — especially car thefts, break-ins and drug cases. Recent incidents with guns in the hands of juveniles are drawing the attention of Waldo and Brookside residents, along with owners of restaurants and other small businesses in Westport, the Crossroads and the River Market.
It’s a broadening conversation often centered on the traumatic and disproportionate impact violent crime has on Black communities.
“Crime is bonding us all,” said Julie Prudden, a Realtor and Brookside resident.
Sharp differences
Chappell and Johnson have distinct differences in how they plan to approach the job. Chappell vows to be an aggressive criminal prosecutor, while Johnson promises a balance of prosecution and crime prevention efforts.
Chappell leans into her time as the appointed prosecutor for Blue Springs and her private defense practice, including cases where juveniles have been charged with violent crimes.
She speaks of getting tough on criminals and sees social justice programming as secondary to pursuing criminal convictions.
“We can’t afford to just program our way out of prosecution,” Chappell said.
Johnson promotes her lifelong connections to Kansas City’s urban core, her ability to strike a balance between crime prevention efforts and swift prosecution, and her experience as public safety director for Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas.
Johnson’s job in the mayor’s office gives her a role in the city’s latest anti-violence effort, SAVE KC, a model that focuses on people deemed most likely to be perpetrators or victims of violence.
“I am the only candidate with a real plan to bring meaningful change to our community,” Johnson said.
Each Wednesday morning, Johnson joins a Kansas City Police Department discussion analyzing every shooting of the prior week — whether someone was grazed by a bullet or killed. It’s part of a strategy to be responsive to the trauma that gun violence inflicts. Police and other community-based programs can intervene before retaliatory violence occurs and offer help for the people impacted.
Campaign attacks
The candidates have also questioned each other’s qualifications.
Chappell repeatedly has asked if Johnson has ever tried a felony case during her time in the Jackson County prosecutor’s office. Johnson says she was involved in the prosecution of felony cases, including murders, but not as the lead prosecutor.
Johnson said her experience includes making opening statements, cross-examinations and preparing jury instructions in drug and murder trials.
“Your obsession with my resume versus your actual platform is concerning,” Johnson posted to Chappell’s campaign Facebook page.
Johnson has questioned why Chappell left previous legal work with the county, noting that Chappell filed a discrimination suit accusing the Jackson County counselor of discrimination.
Chappell joined the county counselor’s office in April 2008 and filed the discrimination suit in 2016.
Chappell’s lawsuit alleged that she was demoted from handling litigation to working the mental health docket after taking a three-month maternity leave. The suit alleged she was fired after filing a complaint with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The case was settled in July 2018.
“The truth?” Chappell said. “I filed a disability discrimination lawsuit related to maternity leave issues that led to a firing — an issue close to my heart as both a mother and a legal professional.”
After leaving the county counselor’s office, Blue Springs hired Chappell as a contract city prosecutor from December 2018 through May 2022.
Anti-violence programs
The next Jackson County prosecutor’s office has historically played a role in a wide range of anti-violence efforts.
Kansas City, in coordination with local nonprofits and community leaders, is deeply invested in programs like SAVE KC and KC 360, led by KC Common Good.
“Safety and justice go hand in hand,” Johnson said.
SAVE KC is a revamp of a similar anti-violence program championed by Baker, KC NoVA, for Kansas City No Violence Alliance.
KC NoVA saw some early success, including a drop in homicides in 2014. But the program unraveled without the backing of former Police Chief Rick Smith.
Chappell questions if there is enough community buy-in for SAVE KC to be any more successful than KC NoVA, which she called a “snitch” program too reliant on expecting people to lead police to suspects in exchange for social service help.
“You have services right now that a person can get without snitching,” Chappell said. “If they wanted to take it, they could get help right now.”
Chappell has accused Johnson of being “a director of no one,” noting she functions without staff reporting to her.
“I’m the only one in this room who’s actually trained police officers on Fourth Amendment issues,” Chappell said, adding that she has experience training other prosecutors and staff during her time as prosecutor in Blue Springs.
Johnson promotes her time with the Jackson County prosecutor’s office early in her career.
“I am the only candidate in this race with felony prosecutorial experience and public safety administrative leadership experience as well,” Johnson said.
Johnson said she leads a city task force that works with businesses that have been plagued with public safety issues, finding them relief through numerous departments at City Hall.
Both candidates are critical of Baker, vowing to prosecute more property crimes and drug cases.
Johnson plans to form a property crimes division in the office, staffed in part by law students.
Chappell proposes satellite offices at police stations to work more collaboratively.
Focus on property crime
Baker has long emphasized that the prosecutor’s office can only file the cases it receives and that property crimes are notoriously difficult to solve.
In 2022, the Kansas City Police Department recorded 24,356 property crimes. Just 6.4% were sent to the prosecutor.
The same year, KCPD logged 7,587 violent crimes. Only 18% were sent to the prosecutor’s office.
“If they sent me another 1,000 property crimes a year I would do them,” Baker said. “I would file them. … It’s not because (police) are lazy or that they don’t care. It’s because they aren’t solving them.”
The prosecutor’s office is a check on police powers. A prosecutor has the discretion to decide whether evidence in a case supports a likely conviction.
In 2020, Baker began research that led her office to focus on drug cases with a connection to violent crime, declining to pursue charges in other, nonviolent cases.
Baker’s research showed a disproportionate number of nonfelony drug cases charging African American suspects (81% of buy-bust cases had a Black suspect, while the county is 39% Black).
Chappell and Johnson have vowed to charge more cases, even those without a tie to violence.
Most of the cases brought to the prosecutor’s office come from Kansas City police.
But the county also works with eastern Jackson County and law enforcement agencies from Independence, Lee’s Summit, Raytown, Grandview, Blue Springs, Greenwood, Lake Lotawana, Levasy, Lone Jack, Sugar Creek and the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Most cases processed and tried by the prosecutor’s office are felonies.
Misdemeanors are managed through the Municipal Court by city prosecutors.
Kansas City has seen 122 homicides as of Oct. 21 this year, compared to 152 at the same time a year ago, with 14 of the cases currently in the prosecutor’s office, according to Kansas City police.
Black men were the victims in 79 cases and the suspects in 76, by far the highest demographic group affected. A firearm was used in 116 of the cases.
KCPD data also show a 68% clearance rate, meaning at least one person was arrested and the case turned over for prosecution.
Teenagers with guns
In early October, two men and two juveniles were taken into police custody after a series of armed robberies in parking lots behind Brookside businesses.
Charges against the men, for robbery and armed criminal action, came swiftly after police pieced together fraudulent use of a credit card, victim statements and surveillance footage.
The county’s Family Court handles juvenile cases.
But the prosecutor can play a role if the Family Court judge certifies a teenager to stand trial as an adult.
Chappell said she’s more qualified to take on crime by juveniles because she has represented teenagers in her defense work and understands the laws of the family court system.
She believes the next prosecutor needs to be willing to charge teenagers prosecuted after they have been certified as adults by the court.
Johnson has criticized “giving slaps on the wrist” to violent juveniles, arguing that disrespects their victims and also the young people.
“We’re selling them a dream that they can conduct themselves in this way, without consequence,” she said.
This will “fast-track their journey to either a jail cell or a morgue for the rest of their life,” she added.
Johnson has also said that her work with Kansas City police, through her job as the city’s public safety director, gives her an understanding of cases where the parents of juveniles who commit crimes need to be held accountable.
“I see incidents where parents can be proven to be complicit in the criminal conduct of their children, or are criminally negligent,” she said.
The adult charges in the Brookside robberies are only the latest incidents that also involve young people as suspects or victims.
Of the homicides reported by KCPD so far this year, 13 victims were younger than 18. Another 27 were 18 to 24 years of age.
Prosecutor candidates in Jackson County
Tracey Chappell
Chappell is from Alabama but moved to Kansas City in 1997 and later enrolled in law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
She’s running as a Republican in a Democratic-leaning county.
She identifies as conservative and said she does not plan to vote for either Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris.
“But why bring national politics into something, into a local race?” she said.
Doing so, Chappell said of her opponents, is a “dog whistle” attempting to link her campaign to racially divisive comments made by Trump.
Chappell ran for Jackson County prosecutor in 2020 but was defeated handily by Baker.
Her platform includes a pledge of “safety for every ZIP code,” calling for prosecuting violent offenders and property crimes while protecting the rights of victims.
Chappell said that she has not tried to gain the endorsement of unions or other groups.
Melesa Johnson
Johnson grew up in the Oak Park neighborhood of Kansas City.
She often credits her single mother for working three jobs so Johnson could attend Bishop Miege High School.
Johnson graduated from Columbia University in New York with a bachelor’s degree in political science.
Her law degree is from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
But it is her deep connections to Kansas City’s urban core that she often taps in forums, noting that she knows families who are fearful of their own neighborhoods because of rising gun violence.
She recently posed with Kevin Strickland, who was released after serving 43 years for murders that he didn’t commit.
She plans on invigorating the conviction integrity unit, if elected, running on a promise for “fairness, transparency, and accountability in our justice system.”
Johnson has been endorsed by numerous elected and civic leaders including Jackson County Executive Frank White, Kansas City Mayor Pro Tem Ryana Parks-Shaw, Kansas City Council member Melissa Robinson, longtime area leader Alvin Brooks and the community group Southland Progress.
This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
