St. Francois County is one courthouse. Whether you were arrested in Farmington, Park Hills, Desloge, Bonne Terre, Bismarck, Leadington, Leadwood, or Iron Mountain Lake, a state criminal charge is filed with the circuit court at 1 North Washington Street in downtown Farmington and heard there.
Wulfers Law Firm is a few minutes from that building. Patrick Wulfers founded the firm in Farmington in 2022, St. Francois County is his main courthouse, and he is the attorney on every case the firm takes. This page is for anyone charged anywhere in the county: what happens next, what the court looks like, and what we do about it.
One county, one courthouse
The St. Francois County Courthouse is at 1 North Washington Street in downtown Farmington, with the newer annex a block away on West Liberty Street. St. Francois County is part of Missouri's 24th Judicial Circuit, along with Madison, Ste. Genevieve, and Washington counties, so the judges who hear cases in Farmington are the same circuit that sits in Fredericktown, Ste. Genevieve, and Potosi.
A misdemeanor stays in the associate division of the circuit court and is usually resolved there. A felony starts there too, with a preliminary hearing where the state has to show probable cause, and if it passes that point it is bound over to the circuit division for the rest of the case.
Each stage is a chance to do something useful: challenge the stop or the search, get the evidence the state is relying on, and start the conversation with the prosecutor from a position of knowing the file.
The towns we take cases from
Farmington is the county seat and the biggest town, but it is not where most arrests happen. The county runs from Bonne Terre in the north to the Madison County line south of Farmington, and from Bismarck in the west to the Ste. Genevieve County line in the east. Highway 67 carries people through the middle of it all day.
- Farmington: the courthouse, the county jail, and our office.
- Park Hills: the county's second-largest town, on Highway 32 west of Farmington.
- Desloge: on Highway 67 north of Farmington, with its own Walmart and the shoplifting cases that come with one.
- Bonne Terre: the north end of the county, on Highway 67 at Highway 47.
- Bismarck, Leadington, Leadwood, and Iron Mountain Lake: smaller towns whose state charges go to the same Farmington courthouse as everyone else's.
- Doe Run, Frankclay, and the rest of the county outside any city limits, where the charge is almost always a state charge from the start.
What we defend in St. Francois County
Everything the circuit court hears, from a traffic charge that carries a court date to a felony.
- DWI, including the separate license case with its 15-day deadline.
- Drug possession and distribution charges.
- Felonies, from the first appearance through the preliminary hearing and beyond.
- Probation violations, which can bring back the sentence you already avoided once.
- Shoplifting and stealing, including cases from the Farmington and Desloge Walmart stores.
- Traffic charges that carry points or a court date, including driving while suspended or revoked.
If you were charged here but live somewhere else
Highway 67 runs from the St. Louis suburbs down through Bonne Terre, Desloge, and Farmington on its way south. A lot of the people charged in this county were passing through it. If that is you, your case is still in Farmington, and you still have to answer it.
In many cases we can handle routine court appearances so you are not driving back for every setting. We will tell you which dates you must attend in person.