The year 2022 has been a year of transition for the city of Poplar Bluff — and a changing of the guard, as several longtime city officials have called it career after decades of service.
Joining that list is longtime Poplar Bluff Municipal Judge Dean Million, who announced Thursday he was retiring from the city bench at the end of this year after 20 years.
However, Million’s career of service to the city and to Butler County dates back to the mid-1970s. He began as the assistant prosecutor in Butler County in 1974 before being elected Butler County prosecutor in 1976 and serving four years in that position. He also served roughly 10 years as the city prosecutor for a total service career of 36 years.
“In my tenure at the city as its prosecutor and as judge, I worked with, I think, approximately five city managers and two police chiefs,” Million said. “And in that period of time, I worked with a number of municipal clerks. But the court administrator that I worked with closely over the years was Deana Teague. Ms. Teague retired in March of this year, so I follow just a few months behind her. But she and I together were responsible for supervising the Municipal Court for all of those years.”
In his years of service in local courts, Million said he always has made a priority of making a difference.
“It’s really not about assessing a fine or holding a person accountable,” Million said. “It’s motivating a person to change their conduct. A lot of people we see in Municipal Court are just a one-time (offender) and you’ll never see them again. Other people may be struggling with drugs end up (committing other crimes) — stealing, domestic violence or no proof of insurance and leaving the scene of accident — as a result of their complicated lives and drug use. Those are the people that you see on a continuing basis and those are the people that you want to take extra time to try to motivate them.”
Million gives credit to treatment facilities, such as Crossroads, Recycling Grace, John 3:16 and the United Gospel Rescue Mission, for helping those who struggle with addiction to turn their lives around.
“Fortunately, in this part of the country, we have a number of treatment facilities — some of them secular, some of them religious — but there are many opportunities for people to get treatment,” Million said. “And we’ve always treated those defendants special. If they go into treatment and they come back and they bring their sponsor back from the facility … if those people come out of those programs, and they have been successful … when they come back out, in recognition of their work and their motivation to change their lives, we frequently abate all their fines, costs and/or community service.
“And for people that have been without an income for six months, nine months or a year (in those programs), you can sometimes just see the visible relief on their face. And those are the kinds of things that made it worthwhile to work in those courts.”
However, sometimes there have been limitations on what Million and the Municipal Court can do — especially with property crimes such as stealing and shoplifting.
“Because of budget restraints, we are really just not able to sentence anyone to jail as a result of a plea of guilty or a conviction in municipal court,” Million said. “We ended up assessing fines against those people and then attempting to enforce the court’s order. … Some people are accommodating and other people are not quite so accommodating — and it’s just up to the courts to try to motivate people to do what they’re supposed to do.”
Overall, though, Million has a very favorable reflection on his time of service.
“All in all, in that period of time, I’ve found the public that I deal with to be very respectful,” Million said. “Our court and our staff was always respectful to those people. And from time to time people would approach me out in public and introduce themselves and say they were in the court and appreciative of how they were treated with dignity and respect. So that’s what it’s all been about.”
Poplar Bluff city officials announced Thursday that Ralph Innes has been appointed as the new Municipal Court judge.
Innes will be sworn in during the Monday City Council meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. His term is effective as of Jan. 1, 2023.