From the prosecutor’s table to Division 4

Two prosecuting offices

Edwards earned his law degree at the University of Missouri–Kansas City in 2005. From that year through 2013 he worked in the Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office as an assistant prosecutor, a trial team leader and a chief trial assistant. In 2013 he moved to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri, where his responsibilities included supervising prosecutions of narcotics offenses and violent crime.

The third office

Governor Mike Parson appointed Edwards to Division 4 on November 22, 2024. The circuit lists civil, domestic and criminal work among the division’s assignments. A reader who follows a lawyer from a county office into a federal office must keep track of the authority under which a charge was brought. A reader who follows that same lawyer to the bench must make a larger adjustment. An advocate presented one party’s case. The judge hears the competing cases. That change of responsibility deserves public attention well before any campaign could bring a lawyer’s name before the voters.

My interest is political as well as historical. Before a prosecutor or lawyer can speak as a candidate, the public can already examine how the offices held by that lawyer distribute authority.