BOONE COUNTY PRISONER FALLS THROUGH CRACKS OF INJUSTICE

John Pepper is a prisoner of war.

His crime is that he has a past.

His sentence is 105 days and counting.

That's how long the 58-year-old Pepper has been sitting in the Boone County
Jail, awaiting extradition to Arizona. There, in Mohave County, he faces
four-year-old charges of drug possession and manufacture. Pepper used to be
a meth addict. The Vietnam vet spent most of his adult life under the
influence of alcohol and drugs. He's been in and out of prison. He used to
be, to use his own words, a pretty bad guy.

"When I look at my rap sheet," he says, "that guy scares me."

The rap sheet has as many entries as Pepper does tattoos. They're scattered
up and down both of his arms and peeking through the V-neck of his
jail-issued orange jumpsuit. He fits the bill of a lifetime criminal, a
so-called three-time loser. Talk to him, though, even through a pane of
glass in a jail visitation room, and you hear a man seeking justice.

He figures he did whatever he's charged with in Arizona, though he can't
remember. He used to black out a lot when he was high on meth. That's how
he ended up in Columbia. He awoke from a blackout and found himself at
Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital. Out of desperation, for the first time
in his life, he agreed to go into drug treatment. The Department of
Veterans Affairs sent him to a clinic at Lake of the Ozarks, and he's been
clean since. It's been 17 months, and Pepper is a new man.

So says Reggie Kinser, a local Church of Christ pastor who met Pepper at an
Alcoholics Anonymous meeting a year and a half ago. Pepper has been active
at Kinser's church. He's moved into a home for recovering drug addicts. The
VA hired him to work at Truman. Unfortunately, that's what led to Pepper's
address changing to the Boone County Jail.

Because of a possible promotion, VA officials had to run a background check
on Pepper. The old warrants showed up. Boone County sheriff's deputies
arrested Pepper on Sept. 3 while he was working.

Two days later, he appeared before Boone County Associate Circuit Judge
Larry Bryson. He said he didn't need an attorney. He knew he wanted to do
the right thing and accept extradition to Arizona so he could deal with the
consequences of the charges he faced. "There was no sense in me adding to
the public defender's caseload," he says. "I knew what extradition was. I
didn't want to deny anything."

That's one of the things Pepper learned in his treatment program. He's no
longer ashamed of his past. He knows who he was and who he is. He takes
responsibility for his actions and treats people with respect.

"I waived all my rights and told him I'm willing to go down there and get
it cleared up," he says.

Bryson, for some reason, was having none of it. Rather than rule on the
extradition matter, he set a second hearing for Oct. 5.

Again, Pepper asked to be extradited so he could put his affairs in order.

Again, Bryson delayed.

This is when Kinser, who had been visiting his friend in jail, got
concerned. The pastor wrote a letter asking for help to Presiding Judge
Gene Hamilton. Kinser also spoke with local defense attorney Pat Eng, who
happened to be in court on the days Pepper tried to waive his extradition.
Eng thought it seemed as if Pepper were spending an awfully long time in
jail for a guy who was simply trying to be extradited, and he agreed to
make a couple of calls.

"The very unfortunate part of this situation is that John truly wants to
resolve the situation in Arizona," Kinser wrote Hamilton. "He is more than
willing to travel there voluntarily and present himself to the authorities.
Instead, my friend is losing valuable time."

The letter or Eng's calls or both had the desired effect. On Nov. 30,
realizing too much time had elapsed, Bryson dismissed the complaint filed
against Pepper based on the out-of-state warrant. He was free. Minutes
later, the prosecuting attorney refiled the complaint, and Pepper was
hauled before Associate Circuit Judge Jodie Asel to again face an
extradition hearing.

Asel granted Pepper's request. He would be extradited to Arizona, just as
soon as Mohave County officials came to pick him up.

That was almost three weeks ago. Pepper was told it would be 10 days or less.

Now he's still stuck in jail, and he's more worried than before. He has no
hearings scheduled. The jail won't release him, but he has no idea whether
or when Arizona officials will come to pick him up. It's been 105 days, and
he hasn't spoken with an attorney and still doesn't even know exactly the
status of the charges against him.

"How is the judge even going to know that I'm still here?" he says. "Nobody
will tell me anything. If it's really all that serious, why am I still
sitting here?"

Pepper wonders whether he's the only prisoner in his situation.

"Everybody seems to be on the sheriff because of the jail overcrowding," he
says. "He's not the problem. The problem is with the courts."

Exhibit A is the case of John Pepper. There he sits, in his new home in the
Boone County Jail, charged with not a single crime in Missouri, willing to
answer to any charges thrown his way. He figures he's probably got some
more jail time in his future. Pepper just thinks a judge ought to tell him
why he's there.