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ST. LOUIS — Janis Mensah walked out of a downtown ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ courtroom pleased but not satisfied.

ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Circuit Court Judge Rochelle Woodiest had just declared Mensah not guilty of trespassing and resisting arrest charges. Mensah had fought the charges since 2023.

“I honestly don’t feel like this is justice,� Mensah told me after the verdict was announced in front of a full courtroom of about 40 supporters. “I was put through a terrible ordeal for two years.�

Mensah, former co-chairperson of the civilian Detention Facilities Oversight Board, had been charged by the city with the two violations after an Aug. 31, 2023, visit to the City Justice Center. Mensah heard that a detainee died at the jail and went there for a site visit, as the oversight board was allowed to do.

Mensah went into the lobby area, past security, but then-Jail Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah refused to allow a jail visit. Mensah, who uses they/their pronouns, stayed in the lobby for hours, refusing to leave. Abdullah called police and Mensah was arrested.

Mensah had been highly critical of Abdullah and called for the jail commissioner to resign amid a series of jail deaths and other issues.

In the trial this week, the city counselor’s office, which was prosecuting the case, never presented as evidence the ordinances that Mensah allegedly violated. After the city rested its case, Mensah’s attorneys, Maureen Hanlon and William Waller, filed a motion for acquittal, telling the judge their client had to be found not guilty because the ordinances were not presented, as is required. The wording of an ordinance can be crucial to determining whether an offense took place.

That’s a “fundamental deficiency� in the case, Waller argued to Judge Woodiest. After a break to consider the argument, the city counselor’s office asked Woodiest to allow them to re-open the case to fix the error. The judge declined.

“The defendant is discharged from this matter,� she said, amid applause in the courtroom.

Mensah was not guilty. The case was over.

Hanlon said she was confident the jury would have sided with Mensah.

“This should have been dealt with through a quick apology, not years of prosecution,� Hanlon said. “That there is still no meaningful oversight of a facility with continued troubles shows that the city is focused on the wrong things.�

The city never presented Abdullah, who was removed from her position by former Mayor Tishaura O. Jones last year, as a witness. The only witnesses in the case were ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Police Officer Brian Gonzalez, one of the cops who arrested Mensah, and Capt. Amy Flynn, a jail supervisor.

Both testified that they asked Mensah to leave the jail. Gonzalez admitted, though, that he didn’t warn Mensah that they would be arrested if they didn’t leave the lobby area. Mensah was pulled to the ground and handcuffed.

Mensah’s acquittal comes at a precarious time in the city, with another detainee in the jail, Samuel Hayes, Jr., dying Saturday night after being strapped to a restraint chair.

That’s where Mensah’s attention turned after being acquitted.

“This case against me has done nothing to improve jail conditions,� Mensah said.

While it is standard practice for defense attorneys to seek a directed verdict after prosecutors rest their cases, they are rarely granted by judges. In this case, Judge Woodiest granted Mensah’s motion for acquittal.

Not producing the trespassing and resisting ordinances was a massive blunder by Assistant City Counselor Christopher Carenza, according to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ University law professor Brendan Roediger.

“The jail just left a dead person in a restraint chair for 90 minutes and this is what the city spends its money on?� Roediger said after the verdict. “It’s an embarrassing way to lose and an embarrassing case.�

That’s been Hanlon’s position for nearly the entire time she’s represented Mensah. She pleaded publicly with Jones and new Mayor Cara Spencer to drop the case, in part because of the chilling effect it could have on oversight boards in the city. But the case pressed forward under both mayors. That was in part because Mensah would not sign a waiver promising not to sue the city, Carenza said in a hearing earlier this year.

“This is a case about whether the city can arrest one of its own members of the jail oversight board,� Hanlon had told the jury in her opening argument.

In the end, the jury never got the case. The case ended the way it began, with Mensah sitting silently in a chair seeking justice for people in the city’s custody.

“I deserved more (from the city),� Mensah said. “The people in the jail deserve more. Someday soon, we’ll get it.�