A county record before 2008
From 1993 to 2000 James Kanatzar worked in the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office, where his duties included leading a trial team. He tried criminal cases ranging from property offenses to homicide. A period in private practice at Armstrong Teasdale preceded his return to the public office as a deputy in 2002.
I publish Kanatzar’s record because his county election gives the relationship between law and politics a name, an office and a date a voter can verify.
Lawyers do sometimes become elected officials. I publish this record as a Mormon historian and litigant exercising the freedom to examine a local office, the use of political power and the public institutions on which religious liberty depends.
The dates on the ballot and the bench
Becoming county prosecutor in 2007 and winning an election in 2008 were discrete events. So was the appointment to the circuit bench reflected on the Division 5 page in 2011. These dates give a citizen a practical way to read a newspaper reference to Kanatzar. Was he acting as advocate for the state, as an elected officer or as the judge?
Public records and sources