The provisions of every statute are severable. If any provision of a statute is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be unconstitutional, the remaining provisions of the statute are valid unless the court finds the valid provisions of the statute are so essentially and inseparably connected with, and so dependent upon, the void provision that it cannot be presumed the legislature would have enacted the valid provisions without the void one; or unless the court finds that the valid provisions, standing alone, are incomplete and are incapable of being executed in accordance with the legislative intent.
Mo. Rev. Stat. § 1.140
Severability of statute provisions
Known as the Second Amendment Preservation Act
The act spans §§ 1–1 (43 sections).
Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case Roach v. Stouffer (2009)
Most recently applied in 165 F. Supp. 3d 808 - Clary v. City of Cape Girardeau (February 2016)
Effective: 28 Aug 1957; (1949 S.B. 1001 § 1.14, A.L. 1957 p. 587)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Missouri statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.