Before the gavel
As chief deputy prosecuting attorney, Kevin Harrell directly supervised senior trial assistants, warrant officers, operations and victim services. The court’s account places another 186 staff under his indirect supervision. Those two kinds of supervision should stay distinct. An office can shape the public administration of justice through staffing decisions and training that never appear in a reported opinion.
Elected in 2023, presiding in 2025
Jackson County’s judges elected Harrell presiding judge in December 2023. He spent the following year as presiding judge-elect and began the two-year term on January 1, 2025, succeeding Jalilah Otto. The circuit identifies Otto as its first Black presiding judge and Harrell as the first Black man to hold the office. The court’s own announcement distinguishes administrative authority, including responsibility for the budget, from the independent work of judges deciding cases in their divisions.
The amended agenda for November 6, 2026, brings that distinction into the Independence courthouse. Harrell was scheduled to call the meeting to order. Jalilah Otto had the budget and audit update, Mark Styles had the circuit budget and family court reports, and James Kanatzar was to present a proposed rule on artificial intelligence. For a citizen following public expenditure or a change in procedure, those names supply the starting points. The agenda establishes what was scheduled. A claim about how the court voted calls for the minutes.
The organization of a prosecutor’s staff is a legitimate subject of local reporting. Harrell’s judicial biography supplies names of the functions and a count of the staff.
Citizens can study court management as seriously as an election. My interest as a Mormon historian, litigant and commentator reaches the conditions under which political speech, independent publication and religious liberty are exercised in this community.
Training the people who spoke in court
Harrell spent fifteen years with the prosecutor’s office before his 2012 appointment to the bench. Between 2002 and 2010 he taught trial preparation and presentation to lawyers and prosecutors. The circuit court identifies him as its presiding judge and lists his own Division 18 docket. The public has an interest in how a courthouse is run as well as how its judges decide individual matters.
Public records and sources