Commission announces nominees for St. Louis Circuit Court vacancy

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The 22^nd Judicial Commission nominated two associate circuit judges and a member of Gov. Jay Nixon’s staff to fill a vacancy in the St. Louis Circuit Court — Judge Paula Perkins Bryant, Judge Elizabeth Byrne Hogan and Rex M. Burlison.

The vacancy was created when Judge Donald McCullin retired in April.

Bryant has been on the associate circuit bench since 2004. Her prior experience includes work in private practice, as a public defender and as a staff attorney for the St. Louis Circuit Court. She is active in several bar associations. Bryant received her bachelor’s degree in 1981 from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and her law degree in 1983 from Saint Louis University School of Law.

Burlison is the director of the Eastern region for the governor’s office, a post he’s held since February 2009. He also served as Nixon’s chief counsel, for the Eastern District of Missouri, when Nixon was the state’s attorney general. In April 2000, then-Gov. Mel Carnahan appointed the trial lawyer as an associate circuit judge in St. Charles County. Burlison received his bachelor’s degree in 1976 from Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman State University) and his law degree in 1979 from Saint Louis University School of Law.

Hogan was appointed to the associate circuit bench in 2005. Prior to her appointment, she was an assistant prosecuting attorney in Hillsboro and assistant circuit attorney in the city of St. Louis, engaged in private practice with her husband and was a children’s advocacy attorney for Voices with Children. Hogan graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., and Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich.

Each candidate received four votes.

The members of the commission are: Chief Judge Roy L. Richter, of the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District, Stephen Doss, June Dabney Bosley Gray, Steven Groves and Mary Anne Sedey.