Your Sheriff's Office's Role in Criminal and Civil Process - February, 2021

With February here, we are just that much closer to spring!  For this month's article, I'll take opportunity to highlight an important, sometimes not well-known/publicized operation of your Sheriff's Office.  The handling of criminal and civil process ("paper service") is a statutory requirement of the Sheriff, regardless if in the rural areas of the county or in downtown Fulton, New Bloomfield, or Holts Summit.  Annually, your Sheriff's Office serves just shy of 3,000 documents in Callaway County for an array of civil and criminal matters.  The documents range from anything such as a small claims suit filed in the local civil Court system to a criminal summons to appear reference a felony drug charge.  Over the past few years, due to several Court reform measures enacted by the Missouri Supreme Court, the issuance of criminal summons in lieu of arrest warrants has increased, thus increasing the duties of our deputy assigned to serve process documents for the Court.  Our agency is blessed to have a deputy in this role that is most efficient and takes great strides to ensure adequate attempts are made to serve every single document sent to us from the Court!  This allows the patrol deputies to focus on criminal investigations, service of arrest warrants, proactive patrols, etc.! 

At your service,

Sheriff Clay Chism