Nixon names Wilson to Supreme Court

Jefferson City native will succeed William Ray Price Jr., who retired Aug. 1

Paul Wilson, former Cole County circuit judge and a former assistant attorney general, will be the next judge on Missouri's Supreme Court.

Gov. Jay Nixon announced the appointment this afternoon.

No date has been announced for his joining the court.

Wilson was one of three applicants nominated to the high court in October by the seven-member Appellate Judicial Commission.

Jackson County Circuit Judge Michael Manners and St. Louis County lawyer Stanley J. Wallach were the other two nominees.

Nixon named Wilson to the Cole County post in January 2010, after then-Judge Richard Callahan resigned to become the U.S. Attorney in St. Louis.

Wilson, a Democrat, lost the November 2010 election to Republican Dan Green, for the final four years of Callahan's six-year term.

Since January 2011, he's been in private law practice with the Columbia-based Van Matre, Harrison, Hollis, Taylor, and Bacon law firm.

Wilson succeeds William Ray Price Jr., who joined the high court in 1992 and was the last judge appointed by then-Gov. John Ashcroft still to be on the court.

Nixon today also named Circuit Judge Mary W. Sheffield, Rolla, to the Missouri Appeals Court's Southern District, based in Springfield.