Friday, February 14, 2025

New judge assigned to Craig Smith stalking/child pornography case, arraignment date pushed back


Jasper County Division III Judge David Mouton has taken over the Craig Smith stalking/child pornography case as of late Thursday.

After Smith, 52, a former Carl Junction R-1 choir teacher, waived his preliminary hearing and was bound over for trial, his attorney, Jonathan Pierce, Neosho, filed a motion to have the case removed from Judge Joseph Hensley. At that point, it was assigned to Judge Dean Dankelson.

On Thursday, Assistant Jasper County Prosecuting Attorney Kurtis Droppa filed a motion for change of judge and Mouton was assigned.







With the judge merry-go-round appearing to have run its course, Smith's trial court arraignment has been moved from March 6 to 9 a.m. April 1 in Joplin.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Let's keep trying to find a Judge that will give us some leniency.