Ballew & Snell Gymnasium at Montgomery County High School was turned into a courtroom on Oct. 17 as numerous students attended a court session of the Missouri Court of Appeals from the Eastern District.

Students from government, criminal justice and advanced U.S. history classes were in attendance at the one-hour session and got an opportunity to ask questions afterwards.

There were three judges in the session, one of them was Montgomery County Associate Circuit Judge Nathan Carroz. Carroz, a Wellsville-Middletown graduate, has been working as associate circuit judge since March 2021. He replaced Kelly Broniec, who worked as associate circuit judge for 14 years before being appointed as a judge of the Missouri Court of Appeals in October 2020. She was appointed judge of the Missouri Supreme Court on Sept. 12.

After the court session, Carroz shared his experiences of working with Broniec after graduating from W-M in 2005.

“Judge Broniec was very kind and very encouraging,” Carroz said. “I still have in my mind the things that she said to me that encouraged me along my journey and I really appreciate that. So if anyone is interested in the practice of law, I encourage you to seek out an attorney, seek out a prosecutor’s office and seek out a judge.”

The other judges were James M. Dowd and Lisa Page. Both were appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2015. The Eastern District Court of Appeals is Missouri’s largest appellate court with offices in St. Louis.

“We’re very happy to be here,” Dowd said. “We really enjoy taking our show on the road as they say. We’re a traveling court.”

Two lawyers – Jonathan Sternberg and Nathan Aquino – were at the session. Sternberg is a private lawyer, while Aquino works as an attorney at the Missouri Attorney General’s office. Sternberg and Aquino each presented a 15-minute argument, followed by a three-minute rebuttal from Sternberg.

The Missouri Court of Appeals from the Eastern District holds oral arguments at various locations, including high schools, throughout the district, which serves 25 counties, including Montgomery.

The case at the court session involved a shooting that happened in St. Louis in 2013. During the case, students learned about the role of judges, the judicial system and terms such as post conviction relief case and standard of review.

“Practicing law is like doing puzzles,” Dowd said. “That’s really what this is. It’s great that you love figuring stuff out.”

The judges sat as a panel of three to hear the arguments. Dowd said after hearing the arguments, the judges will go to a room to decide a case, which is called a conference. The judges’ decisions are called opinions and they are written and published in the South Western Reporter law book.

“We will have a preliminary voting on the case on whether it’s an affirmed or reversal decision,” Dowd said. “If two of the three of us vote one way and the other votes another one way, the two wins. That’s why we sit in a panel of three to bring three different minds to a case.”