When he was an assistant attorney general, incumbent Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson, a Republican, said his work on a death penalty case in the mid-1980s was one of the events that helped him know "that I wanted to be a prosecutor."
At the same candidates' forum Wednesday night, former Assistant Prosecutor Anji Gandhi, an independent candidate, said she won a job in the Jackson County prosecutor's office while she still was in law school, and, "before I even graduated from law school, I got to "second-chair' a first-degree murder trial - which was fantastic. ... I got the bug; I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life."
Several dozen people attended Wednesday night's candidates' forum sponsored by the Cole County Bar Association.
It had been promoted as a chance to hear the local prosecuting attorney and circuit judge candidates - but Republican Brian Stumpe told organizers he couldn't attend.
So incumbent Circuit Judge Pat Joyce, a Democrat, had the podium to herself talking about the judge's job and her experiences getting to the bench.
Richardson became an assistant Cole County prosecutor in December 1985 and worked for six years before setting up a private practice. He was elected prosecutor in 2006 and re-elected in 2010. He hopes voters will keep him in office another four years.
"Now in my eighth year, I have seen a lot of big cases," Richardson said. "I, as an old-fashioned prosecutor, assign the most big cases and the most serious cases to myself to do - because I feel like, in this size community, the elected prosecutor should be willing to go to work on those serious cases."
He noted his work convinced judges to reinstate the grand jury, which had been stopped during Bill Tackett's term as prosecutor.
Richardson said his work also has won "great respect from the citizens of Cole County" and from law enforcement officers.
Gandhi joined the Cole County prosecutor's office in 1996, and later worked in the Boone County prosecutor's office before returning to Cole County.
She worked in private practice from 2003-07, when Richardson hired her back as an assistant Cole County prosecutor.
She said a good prosecutor must have "good judgment" about when to file a charge, offer a plea deal or take a case to trial.
Gandhi said she left the prosecutor's office earlier this year, and now is running for the job, because "I worked there for 6½ years and I can no longer tolerate the bad judgment going on in that office."
If she's elected, Gandhi said, she would do a better job of training assistants and working with them on a day-to-day basis.
During a question-and-answer session, Richardson said Gandhi's view of his work was wrong.
"I keep a pulse on the assistant prosecutors," he said. "I work to hire prosecutors who have good judgment and use good judgment, (which) is developed over time.
"I'm now in my 30th year as an attorney. I have good judgment that I know the law - and I know the victim as much as I can."
In her appearance before the meeting, Joyce also talked about the importance of "experience" for a judge.
After working 12 years as an assistant Cole County prosecutor, she was first elected as an associate circuit judge in 1994, and now is seeking her third six-year term as a circuit judge.
"Judges really can't ever tell you about what their issues are," she said. "Our job as a judge is to be able to come into a case, listen to the facts, understand what the facts are and then apply the law to the facts."
Joyce said her best successes have involved creation of the alternative drug courts for adults and juveniles, and DWI courts, that have helped people change their lives and stay out of prison.
She hopes to be re-elected so she can finish the work needed to start a Cole County veterans court.