(Updated with new profile information on a candidate seeking the position)
Fifteen candidates are seeking to fill a seat on the Kansas Supreme Court that is coming open with the retirement of Justice Evelyn Wilson.
Wilson is resigning from the high court after she was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. She is leaving the court effective July 4.
Here’s a look at who has applied to replace Wilson, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2019 by Gov. Laura Kelly:
Meryl Carver-Allmond, Lawrence
Experience: raining director for the Kansas Board of Indigents’ Defense Services. Also worked as Kansas capital appellate defender, who handled direct appeals of death penalty cases in the Kansas appellate courts. She was the Kansas capital appellate defender from 2012 to 2021. She researched and co-authored briefs in six death penalty cases and filed petitions for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in four of those cases. Carver-Allmond worked as the assistant Kansas appellate public defender from 2008 to July 2012. She researched and wrote almost 150 briefs in felony cases before the Kansas appellate courts.
Education: Bachelor’s in justice studies/political science from Pittsburg State in 2003. She earned a law degree from the University of Kansas Law School in 2005.
Carl Folsom III, Lawrence
Experience: Was appointed district judge in Douglas County in 2022. He currently presides over cases involving general civil litigation, domestic and limited actions. Before joining the bench, Folsom served as a trial attorney with the Office of the Federal Public Defender. Folsom initially joined the Federal Public Defender system in 2012, first working as a research-and-writing specialist and then as an assistant federal public defender for the Northern and Eastern Districts of Oklahoma. Early in his career, Folsom was a partner in the Lawrence law firm Bell Folsom. He started his legal career with the Kansas Appellate Defender Office. Gov. Laura Kelly twice nominated Folsom to the Kansas Court of Appeals, but he was rejected by the Senate even though he had support from conservative Kansas Supreme Court Justice Caleb Stegall as well as former Kansas U.S. Attorney Stephen R. McAllister and former Senate Vice President Jeff King.
Education: Law degree from the University of Kansas and a bachelor’s from KU.
Amy Hanley, Lawrence
Experience: Has been a district judge in Douglas County since 2016. Previously served as the program director and instructor at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. She also served on the board of trustees for that group, which provides trial advocacy training to attorneys. She also worked as an assistant attorney general and criminal prosecution section lead for about seven years with the attorney general’s office. She also worked as the first assistant Saline County attorney for almost seven years. And she served as a special assistant U.S. attorney. She also was cofounder and vice chair for the National District Attorney Association Women Prosecutors Section.
Education: Earned law degree from Drake University and undergraduate degree from Kansas State University.
Randall Hodgkinson
Experience: Visiting assistant professor of law at Washburn University Law School. He is currently appointed in a joint partnership between the Washburn University School of Law and the Kansas Appellate Defender Office teaching criminal appellate advocacy, where law students work, under his supervision, on felony appeals assigned to the Kansas Appellate Defender Office. Before taking his current job, he served as an adjunct professor with the trial advocacy course at Washburn Law. He has represented clients in appeals before the Kansas appellate courts and served as deputy appellate defender from 2001 to 2006. He has been co-counsel in two cases heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a member of the Kansas Judicial Council Criminal Law Advisory Committee.
Education: Bachelor’s in math and computer science from Wichita State University; law degree from Arizona State University.
Christopher Jayaram, Lenexa
Experience: Gov. Laura Kelly named Jayaram as a district judge in Johnson County in 2021. Jayaram – a 1997 graduate of the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon – had been an attorney at Horn Aylward & Bandy in Kansas City, Missouri. He specialized in business and commercial litigation, health care law, product liability litigation and trucking litigation. A 1993 graduate of the University of Kansas with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science, Jayaram worked for the Environmental Protection Agency out of school and later as a law clerk in the trial division of the Oregon Department of Justice. He later worked for the Portland law firm of Smith, Freed, Heald & Chock before moving to Kansas City. He has presided over the legal challenge to state abortion restrictions.
Education: Bachelor’s in environmental science from the University of Kansas and a law degree from the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College in Portland.
Laura Ellen Johnson-McNish, Troy/Marysville
Experience: Has been a district judge since 2023 in the 22nd Judicial District, which covers Doniphan, Brown, Nemaha and Marshall counties. She has served as a district magistrate judge from 2019 to 2023. She also served as Marshall County attorney from 2010 to 2019.
Education: Law degree from Washburn University.
Brant Laue, Topeka
Experience: Served as the state’s solicitor general under former Attorney General Derek Schmidt. He also served as legal counsel to former Republican Govs. Sam Brownback and Jeff Colyer. Laue previously served as special assistant to the assistant attorney general in the civil division of the U.S. Department of Justice and is a former law clerk to Judge Roger L. Wollman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Laue also previously practiced law in Kansas City in commercial litigation and appellate law. He has appeared in six of the federal circuit courts of appeals, as well as the Kansas Supreme Court and the Kansas Court of Appeals.
Education: Earned his law degree from Cornell University, where he was editor of the Cornell Law Review.
Kathleen M. Lynch, Kansas City
Experience: In 2006, Lynch was elected judge in the 29th Judicial District in Wyandotte County. She was a research attorney for Court of Appeals Judge J. Patrick Brazil from 1992 to 1994. She then was a prosecutor focusing on domestic violence cases in Kansas City, Kansas, Municipal Court from 1994 to 1995. Before becoming a judge, she was in private practice and a guardian ad litem and child custody investigator for the district courts in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. She received the Kansas District Judges Association Community Service and Education Award in 2014.
Education: Lynch attended the University of Missouri in Kansas City for her bachelor’s degree in business administration and Washburn University for her law degree.
Cheryl A. Rios, Topeka
Experience: A former nurse, Rios was appointed to the district court bench in Shawnee County in 2008. She previously served as an associate judge for the Topeka Municipal Court. After practicing critical care nursing for six years, the judge served as a staff attorney for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and as an adjunct professor at Washburn University. Rios is a former prosecutor for the Shawnee County district attorney’s office.
Education: Earned a bachelor’s in nursing from St. Mary of the Plains College. She graduated from Washburn University School of Law in 1993.
Anthony F. Rupp, Olathe
Experience: Former partner-in-charge of the Kansas City office of the Foulston Siefkin law firm, the largest Kansas-based law firm. A member of the firm’s litigation and employment practice group, Rupp represents large and small businesses, colleges, universities and municipalities. Notably, Rupp represented the state in its defense of the congressional redistricting plan that the Legislature drew up in 2022. He successfully defended a legal challenge to the awarding of the state’s Medicaid contracts.
Education: Bachelor’s and law degrees from Creighton University.
Krystal Lynn Vokins, Lawrence
Experience: Now works as the assistant director of training for the Kansas State Board of Indigents’ Defense Services. Also has worked at Kansas Disciplinary Administrator’s Office as a deputy disciplinary administrator. She previously worked at the Sloan law firm as a research attorney but also had experience in civil litigation, consumer protection and child in need of care matters. Her practice there focused on civil litigation, business transactions and litigation, family and divorce law, and appellate practice.
Education: She has a bachelor’s and law degree from Washburn University.
Larkin Evans Walsh, Leawood
Experience: Senior counsel at the Kansas City firm, Stueve Siegel Hanson. She previously worked as a research attorney for former state Supreme Court Justice Carol Beier and as a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Carlos Murgia. She worked at two previous law firms – Chinnery, Evans and Nail as well as Sharp Law, before joining her current firm. Walsh “has developed a robust appellate practice and has briefed and argued appeals in the Kansas appellate courts, as well as in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Sixth Circuit, and Tenth Circuit,” according to her profile on her current law firm’s website. Walsh “served on a team that led a group of cases against the U.S. Olympic Committee and its National Governing Bodies (including USA Taekwondo and USA Diving) involving federal claims under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and negligence-based state law claims.” Walsh “champions the rights of workers, consumers, and survivors of forced labor, trafficking, and sexual abuse. She’s on the cutting edge of judicial interpretation of forced labor claims under the Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act; prosecuting collective, class, and mass-action Fair Labor Standards Act and state wage and hour claims in federal district courts nationwide…”
Education: Bachelor’s from Southern Methodist University and a law degree from the University of Kansas.
Kristen Wheeler, Wichita
Experience: Now chair of the Kansas Board of Tax Appeals. She’s been in that position since 2021. She previously worked as a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Thomas Marten. She has worked with the Robinson Law Firm in Wichita, focusing on business advising and litigation, real estate advising and litigation, small-business representation, intellectual property protection, consumer protection, foreclosure defense, contracts, and environmental law. She also was of counsel to Morris, Laing, Evans, Brock & Kennedy. Wheeler has sought seats on the Kansas Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court. She came up just a couple votes short of making the list of three candidates recommended to the governor to fill Lawton Nuss’ seat on the Supreme Court several years ago.
Education: Bachelor’s from the University of Kansas in biodiversity, ecology and evolutionary biology; law degree from Washburn University.
Robert James Wonnell, Olathe
Experience: A district judge in Johnson County since 2015. He was appointed to the bench in 2015 by former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. He was an attorney in private practice from 2001 to 2015 at the firm, McAnany, Van Cleave and Phillips, in Kansas City, Kansas.
Education: He graduated with a bachelor’s in 1998 from Phillips University, a private university in Oklahoma. He earned his law degree from the University of Kansas.
Brian L. Mizer, Lawrence
Experience: U.S. Defense Department, office of general counsel; U.S. Navy Judge General’s Corps; U.S. Air Force Legal Operations Agency; Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Eastern District of Virginia. He served as one of the attorneys who was appointed to defend Salim Hamdan, a former driver of Osama bin Laden when he faced charges before a Guantanamo military commission.
Education: Bachelor’s in international studies from Creighton University and law degree from Case Western Reserve University.
The candidates will be screened by a nine-member panel made up of five lawyers elected by their peers and four nonlawyers appointed by the governor.
The panel will recommend three candidates to the governor to choose from to appoint to the court.
A majority of the nominating committee – seven members – are women.
The panel could be scrapped if voters approve a constitutional amendment in 2026 that calls for moving the state to direct election of Supreme Court elections.
The panel’s members include:
Gloria G. Farha Flentje of Wichita, chair
1st Congressional District member, Robert J. Frederick of Lakin
1st Congressional District member, Diane Oakes of Lawrence
2nd Congressional District member, Jennifer M. Cocking of Emporia
2nd Congressional District member, Frances Gorman Graves of Batlett
3rd Congressional District member, Katie A. McClaflin of Overland Park
3rd Congressional District member, Carol S. Marinovich of Kansas City
4th Congressional District member, Thomas J. Lasater, Wichita
4th Congressional District member, Ebony S. Clemons-Ajibolade, Wichita
