Tony Messenger Tony Messenger is the metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Tony Messenger Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

Judge Kelly Rose must have seen the writing on the wall.

On Dec. 5, she released Clifton Harris from having to come to court anymore to explain whether he could afford to make payments on the bill he owed Lafayette County for the time he spent there in jail.

Harris owes the county more than $2,000 stemming from a misdemeanor he pleaded guilty to in 2016. He was accused of throwing a rock through the window of a police car parked in a lot. After Harris was released from jail, Rose called him back month after month for payment review hearings. When he missed a hearing, he went back to jail, and his debt to the county grew.

Rose’s decision came two weeks after I wrote about Harris’ case.

A few days after Rose released Harris from his court obligations, the Court of Appeals in the Western District of Missouri determined that the practice of using the courts to try to collect board bills is illegal. Ruling in another case in which Rose sought to collect a board bill for jail time, a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled unanimously on Tuesday that “nothing in (state law) provides specific authorization for the taxation of an unpaid board bill as a court cost.”