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Missouri Judicial Retention Guide 2026
On November 3, 2026, Missouri voters will be asked whether 50 judges should keep their jobs. Most voters never get information about these judges beyond a yes-or-no box. This guide looks at what judges have actually ruled, shows you the record and the alternatives, and tells you where Act for Missouri comes down. We keep those parts separate so you can use the first two even if you disagree with the third.
- Election day
- November 3, 2026
- What a retention vote is
- A yes-or-no vote on whether a judge earns another term. A majority of yes votes keeps the judge.
- Judges on retention ballots
- 50: 1 Supreme Court, 5 Court of Appeals, 28 circuit, 16 associate circuit
- New terms
- 12 years for appellate judges, 6 for circuit judges, 4 for associate circuit judges
- Official recommendation
- The Missouri Judicial Performance Review Committee recommended retention for all 50 judges. Its evaluations are at YourMissouriJudges.org.
Which judges are on my ballot?
Every Missouri voter sees the Supreme Court question and the Court of Appeals judges for their district. Circuit and associate circuit retention questions appear only in Clay, Greene, Jackson, and Platte counties, St. Louis County, and the City of St. Louis. Judges in other parts of the state are chosen in partisan elections instead of retention votes. Retention applies only under the Nonpartisan Court Plan.
Jump to: The judges we have reviewed • How each review works • A ruling we dislike is not always a lawless judge • How we choose rulings • All 50 judges
The judges we have reviewed
We are adding judges as we are able to. Each review lists how many rulings we read, and where we could not review something, we say so.
Statewide: on every ballot
Court of Appeals, Western District
Court of Appeals, Eastern District
Judge Virginia W. Lay
Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District
Appointed in 2024 by Gov. Mike Parson (R). Formerly a St. Louis County circuit judge. Her first retention vote.
Read the full review →
Judge Angela Turner Quigless
Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District
Appointed in 2012 by Gov. Jay Nixon (D). Formerly a St. Louis circuit judge. Her second retention vote.
Read the full review →
Judge Rebeca Navarro-McKelvey
Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District
Appointed in December 2023 by Gov. Mike Parson (R). Formerly a St. Charles County circuit judge. Her first retention vote.
Read the full review →
Court of Appeals, Southern District
Circuit and associate circuit judges
We have not reviewed the circuit and associate circuit judges yet, because trial judges rarely publish written opinions and the public record of their rulings is thin. We will add them as we find enough to evaluate. The full list is at the bottom of this page, and the committee's evaluation of each is at YourMissouriJudges.org.
How each review works
Each judge's page has three parts, and each part is marked so you can tell which is which.
The Record
Facts only. What the judge ruled, how colleagues voted, and links to the opinions so you can read them yourself.
What the court could have ruled
The ruling as issued beside a real alternative. Every alternative points to a dissent, the text of a statute, or a later court decision.
Act for Missouri's View
Our opinion. It is the only part of the page that is editorial, and it is boxed and labeled so you cannot mistake it for the record.
In Act for Missouri's View, we give each ruling one of three labels:
Law required this result We may be disappointed in the outcome, but the judge was right to rule as he or she did.
Law allowed either result Both readings have real support. The judge's choice shows how he or she weighs competing principles. It is not an error.
Law did not support this result The judge went beyond what the law allowed.
When the law allowed either result, we say which way we would have chosen and what the judge's choice tells us about how he or she weighs the competing principles. That is where our position comes from.
Our position is an opinion, not a finding that a judge acted unlawfully. We put the burden on the judge to show that he or she has earned another term, and we say plainly when we could not verify something. We also tell you where we have a stake: Act for Missouri opposed both the 2024 and the 2026 Amendment 3, and each page says so where it matters.
A ruling we dislike is not always a lawless judge
When a court strikes down a law or a measure we wanted, it is easy to blame the judge. Sometimes that is fair. Often it is not, and it is worth knowing the difference, because the answer tells us where to aim our frustration and what to fix.
Judges decide cases under rules the legislature and the constitution set. When a ruling goes against us, the real question is whether the law left the judge any choice. If it did not, then the judge was right even if we are disappointed, and the flaw lies in the law or in how it was written.
Example: SB 22
In 2025 the legislature passed Senate Bill 22. It began as a bill about how courts review ballot summaries, which we liked. Along the way it was amended to add a very different power, letting the Attorney General appeal certain court orders, and its title was changed to match. The Missouri Constitution says no bill may be changed in a way that alters its original purpose. In January 2026 the Supreme Court struck down SB 22 in a unanimous opinion, and it ruled that the added power could not be separated from the rest of the bill, so the whole law fell. We liked what the bill set out to do, but we agree with the court. The rule it applied is one the legislature is supposed to follow. The anger belongs with the lawmakers who changed the bill, not with the judges who enforced the constitution. Read our full analysis.
Example: the congressional map
In March 2026 the Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the legislature may redraw congressional districts in the middle of a decade. We were not opposed to the new map and thought the court ruled correctly. Our objection was to how the Missouri GOP and the Secretary of State handled the process, which is a different complaint, aimed at different people.
That is why our reviews separate the rulings where the law left no choice from the ones where it did. A judge who follows the law and hands us a result we dislike has done the job. A judge who chooses between lawful readings, in a way that shows a different view than ours of the principles at stake, is telling us something about his or her judgment. Voters are entitled to know the difference.
How we choose which rulings to review
It is hard to evaluate a judge, and we do not pretend otherwise. Appellate judges write hundreds of opinions over a career. One of the judges we reviewed had written 825 by 2017. No one can read them all, and a few rulings can never fully represent a record. So we look for rulings that might shed light on a judge's overall judgment, and we try to keep ourselves honest about it:
- We look for judgment calls. Split decisions, reversals, and cases where a judge had real room to choose tell us the most about how a judge weighs competing principles.
- We look at the issues voters care about. Government power and delegation, ballot and election law, taxes and property, parental rights, open government, utilities, and civil rights.
- We guard against our own bias. Besides the rulings we choose, we add some picked by a fixed rule, such as the first opinions a judge wrote in a given list that we had not already chosen, so our choices cannot steer the result.
- We tell you the limits. Each page says how many rulings we read, which of them we picked for their subject, and which parts of a judge's record we have not reviewed, such as conduct and temperament.
We also compare the official evaluations. The committee's evaluations draw on surveys of lawyers and others and a review of written opinions, and they recommended retention for every judge on the ballot. Ours looks at particular rulings through our own criteria. They are different tools, and we encourage you to read both.
All 50 judges on retention ballots
Names and court assignments come from the Missouri Bar's 2026 Judicial Performance Reviews and county sample ballots. A committee recommendation to retain is not a legal requirement. Voters still cast a yes-or-no vote on each judge.
Supreme Court of Missouri (every ballot)
Paul C. Wilson. Our review.
Court of Appeals, Eastern District
Virginia W. Lay (our review) Angela Turner Quigless (our review), and Rebeca Navarro-McKelvey (our review).
Court of Appeals, Western District
Lisa White Hardwick. Our review.
Court of Appeals, Southern District
Matthew P. Hamner. Our review.
Circuit and associate circuit judges (44), by county. Not yet reviewed.
6th Circuit, Platte County
Circuit: Myles A. Perry. Associate circuit: Susan M. Casey.
7th Circuit, Clay County
Circuit: David P. Chamberlain. Associate circuit: Karen L. Krauser.
16th Circuit, Jackson County
Circuit: Cory L. Atkins, Lauren D. Barrett, Patrick C. Edwards, Kenneth R. Garrett III, Kevin D. Harrell. Associate circuit: Kea S. Bird-Riley, Abbie Rothermich, Mary Frances Weir, R. Travis Willingham.
21st Circuit, St. Louis County
Circuit: Lorne Baker, John Borbonus, Ellen Wyatt Dunne, Matt Hearne, Amanda B. McNelley, Jeffery McPherson, Mary Elizabeth Ott, Richard M. Stewart. Associate circuit: Chastidy Dillon-Amelung, Mondonna L. Ghasedi, Nicolette Antonia Klapp, Julia Pusateri Lasater, Jason K. Lewis, Justin W. Ruth, Kelly Snyder.
22nd Circuit, City of St. Louis
Circuit: Timothy J. Boyer, Madeline Orling Connolly, Katherine M. Fowler, Heather J. Hays, Elizabeth Byrne Hogan, Annette Llewellyn, Scott A. Millikan, David A. Roither, Michael F. Stelzer, Calea Stovall-Reid, Joseph P. Whyte, Clinton Robert Wright. Associate circuit: Michael R. Dauphin.
31st Circuit, Greene County
Circuit: Nathan Taylor. Associate circuit: Philip M. Fuhrman, Margaret Palmietto.
Last updated October 8, 2026. We will add judges as we are able, and each page notes the date it was last updated.