Judge Gary Kamp to retire at end of term

Longtime Cape Girardeau County Associate Circuit Judge Gary Kamp will retire when his current four-year term ends Dec. 31, 2018.

Kamp announced in a news release Friday he will not seek a seventh term.

Kamp has served as Division III judge since first taking office Jan. 1, 1995.

His court primarily is responsible for handling criminal cases filed in Cape Girardeau County.

Reached at his office, Kamp said he decided to announce his retirement plans to allow time for other attorneys to decide whether they want to seek the post.

“I just thought that was the right thing to do,” he said.

The judge has served on the bench for nearly 24 years.

“It doesn’t seem like it has been that long,” he said.

Court has changed a lot over the years, he said. When Kamp first took the bench, there were no computerized case records.

“We had paper files for everything,” he said.

“There was no Casenet. There was no e-filing,” he recalled.

Kamp said online records provide easier public access to information on court cases. The judge said he favors providing even more information on Casenet. Passwords are needed to read court documents.

Because they are open records, Kamp said he would prefer the public be able to print out documents at home without having to visit the court clerk’s office to access a password-controlled computer as now is the case.

Kamp said he presides over more cases today than when he first became Division III judge.

“I think the first year, we had 1,500 misdemeanors and felonies,” he remembered.

A decade ago, there were about 2,700 cases.

The number of cases has dropped since then. This year, the court could see fewer than 2,000 cases, Kamp said.

Still, the number of cases of domestic violence, murder and illegal drugs have increased over his more than two decades on the bench, he said.

Kamp said his court handled crack-cocaine cases in years past.

“Now it is all meth,” he said.

Kamp, who lives in the Burfordville area, began practicing law in 1978 in Marble Hill, Missouri.

He later served briefly as a part-time assistant prosecuting attorney in Cape Girardeau County.

As a judge, Kamp said his greatest satisfaction is seeing former defendants who have turned their lives around.

He said he also has enjoyed working with other judges in the circuit.

During his tenure, Kamp has served as president and vice president of the Missouri Association of Probate and Associate Circuit Judges. He received that group’s Presidential Award for meritorious service in 2013.

He has served for more than eight years as a member of the board of directors of the Missouri Municipal and Associate Circuit Judges Association. He has served on the editorial staff that has rewritten the last three editions of the Traffic Bench Guide.

Kamp said he has no set plans for retirement, “but I am going to do something.”

That something could involve volunteer work, he added.

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Limbaugh praised Kamp.

“He is one of the most respected, long-term judges in this area,” he said.

He added he and Kamp have had “a bunch of good talks about legal theories.”

Limbaugh said he has found Kamp has a “great sense of humor.”

The prosecutor also described Kamp as a “caring judge” who “doesn’t leave any stone unturned” in trying to help people turn their lives around.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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