The record seen twice
Jessica Agnelly clerked first for Michael W. Farrell of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, then for Ronald R. Holliger of Missouri’s Western District Court of Appeals. In each job the trial had ordinarily been conducted elsewhere. Private practice later gave her thirteen years on the side of the bar where the evidence is developed. The court lists personal injury, product liability and civil rights among that work.
Two appointments in three years
Governor Michael Parson appointed Agnelly to the associate circuit bench in August 2020. Her September 2023 appointment was to Division 16 as a circuit judge. Identifying which appointment a source describes is essential. Even two accurate accounts of when someone became a judge can appear to disagree when one of them concerns a later office.
My interest as a litigant extends to how a clerk reads a trial record on appeal. The two successive clerkships give Agnelly’s biography its own starting point.
For a litigant who writes Mormon history, the route from trial to appeal is an immediate civic question. Freedom of the press gives citizens a way to examine judicial power, religious liberty and the political choices made in their community.
Public records and sources