The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, plans to convene court at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, on Thursday, April 10, 2025. The oral arguments are scheduled to take place beginning at 9 a.m. in the Georgian Room in the Student Union Building on campus.
A panel consisting of Judge Cindy Martin, Judge W. Douglas Thomson, and Senior Judge Joseph M. Ellis, sitting as a special judge, will hear oral arguments in the cases on the docket. After the oral arguments, the judges will take time to discuss the court system and take general questions from the audience.
Martin will preside over the proceedings at Truman State. She was appointed to the Western District in 2009. She practiced law in Kansas City and Lee’s Summit before joining the court. Thomson joined the Western District in 2020. Prior to that, he served as an associate circuit judge in Nodaway County (in the 4th Judicial Circuit) for more than five years. Ellis was appointed to the Western District in August 1993 and retired in March 2016. Before his appointment to the judiciary, he practiced law in Macon and also served as the municipal judge for Macon. Although retired, Ellis continues to serve as a senior judge and was appointed to sit with this panel by the Supreme Court of Missouri pursuant to section 476.681, RSMo.
The court regularly convenes in Kansas City. For more than 25 years, however, the court has held dockets in several of the 45 counties in the court’s jurisdiction, which includes all of northwest Missouri and most of central Missouri. The court hears oral arguments outside of Kansas City to give individuals an opportunity to observe a part of the judicial system they normally do not see and to familiarize those attending with the court’s role in the judicial system.
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