The Missouri Supreme Court turned down a Joplin child molester's efforts to get a new trial.
Robert William Shields has already filed two appeals with the Missouri Southern District Court of Appeals. The first one was rejected outright while the second one tossed Jasper County Circuit Court Judge Dean Dankelson's 99-year sentence, instead sentencing him to life.
Shields was also sentenced to 15 years for child molestation, a life sentence for statutory rape and seven years on a second statutory rape charge with the sentences to run consecutively.
The crimes were committed over a 9-year period beginning when the girl was five years old.