Supreme Court of Missouri celebrates investiture of Judge Kelly C. Broniec

16 April 2024

Pool photos: Theo Tate | Montgomery Standard

Jeff Arens, a longtime family friend of Broniec’s from Montgomery City, served as master of ceremonies. Four people spoke to more than 200 guests, overflowing from the main courtroom to an auxiliary courtroom. Broniec’s sister, husband and daughters assisted with the robing. Speakers painted a universal picture of Broniec as an intelligent, hard-working and caring “good person” who continues to embody the values instilled in her growing up in a small community. 

Arens introduced a number of guests, including Broniec’s former colleagues from the 12th Judicial Circuit (Audrain, Montgomery and Warren counties) and the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, as well as statewide office holders, legislators and judges from around the state.

Speaking first was Evan Rodriguez, general counsel to Parson. He echoed the “hard working” theme, noting Broniec worked two jobs throughout high school and multiple jobs throughout college before starting her career in public service. He also described Broniec as “humble and kind,” with “pages and pages of community involvement,” remarking “I don’t know how she finds the time to do it all,” but she has “made a huge impact” on others. 

Judge Michael S. Wright – now a judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District – described how, in the early 1990s, when he was Warren County’s new prosecuting attorney and Broniec was a college sophomore, he offered her an internship in his office. She continued working with him throughout college and law school and handled her first jury trial for him while she was still a third-year law student working under Supreme Court of Missouri Rule 13. 

“Kelly was always on time, professional, well-prepared and ready for whatever was in front of her,” Wright said. “[O]ne of Kelly’s great qualities is her ability to learn from others by observation. But more than that, she learned from my good habits, ignored my bad habits, and had the innate ability to recognize and know the difference.” 

He explained he called her “Kelly” rather than “Judge Broniec” throughout his remarks not out of disrespect for her position but out of respect for their friendship. “It is who we are, who she is – down home, down to earth, unassuming, unpretentious, and ... someone who has achieved great things. ... Sometimes, something wonderful happens to someone who really deserves it.”

Speaking next was another of Broniec’s longtime mentors, Senior Judge Roy Richter, who retired in July 2020 after more than four decades in judicial service, first as a magistrate and associate circuit judge in Montgomery County and later on the Eastern District appeals court. He explained Broniec is only the third judge from Montgomery County to have served at the Eastern District appeals court as well as at the Supreme Court of Missouri, noting the first to do so was Missouri’s first chief justice, Mathias McGirk, who served from 1820 to 1841.

Richter described eventually persuading Broniec – who had been an assistant prosecutor in both Warren and Lincoln counties – to come to Montgomery County to be its prosecuting attorney, a position he once had held. When Richter was appointed to the Eastern District appeals court, it was Broniec who succeeded him as Montgomery County’s associate circuit judge. Fourteen years later, when he faced mandatory retirement from the bench, Broniec succeeded him again at the court of appeals.

“Then she quit following me and got in the passing lane,” and here she is at the Supreme Court, Richter said. “The Court is getting an incredibly good lawyer – but more importantly, a wonderful person and collegial colleague. The more you are around her, the more you will love her. ... To the people of the state of Missouri: Kelly will jealously guard the principles of the law, with common-sense decisions that uphold the rule of law, and her opinions will be readily understandable by all.”

The final speaker was Judge James Dowd, who worked alongside and mentored Broniec when she joined the court of appeals. He opened his remarks by noting Parson “has shaped the Missouri judiciary more than any other governor,” appointing more than 160 judges, including three to the Supreme Court of Missouri and more than a dozen to the three districts of the court of appeals. He also discussed the enduring impact of the Missouri nonpartisan court plan – adopted by Missourians in November 1940 as their chosen method for selecting judges of the state’s high court – noting the “proof is in the pudding” in ensuring there are “honest, hardworking” judges across the state who apply the law to the facts “without fear or favor.”

Turning his attention to Broniec, Dowd described her as a “consummate Missourian, comfortable in her own skin, a small-town girl ... who chose Montgomery City as a place to live, work, pray and raise a family.” He said, on behalf of all her former colleagues on the Eastern District appeals court, “your appointment here is our loss, but the state of Missouri’s gain.”

After the robing, Broniec offered her own remarks, punctuated by evident emotion. She opened with gratitude to the governor: “I want the governor to know the words ‘thank you’ are inadequate to express what this means to me and my family – that someone like you, who embodies integrity, respect, decency and who has dedicated his life to public service to his fellow citizens ... would see fit to put me on this Court, I hope ... at least in part because he saw in me some of those same traits, which are traits I aspire to.”

She described her journey as that of a small-town girl who grew up in a Warrenton “that had just one blinking light in town,” who worked hard, tried to do the right thing as much as she could, went to church, was nice to people, and worked hard to do her job. She also stressed the importance of being open to possibilities, explaining she often was not seeking a new job but believes “God’s hand was in all of these opportunities and led me in the right direction.”

Broniec thanked her college professor Belinda Bush, an attorney who helped her “start figuring out how to be comfortable and confident in my own skin.” She said she would not have gone to law school but for experiences in Bush’s classes – including writing a mock opinion in a railroad case and watching oral argument at the Supreme Court –  which “left me in awe and inspired.”

She also described how her experiences – first as the only prosecutor and then as the only judge in a small county – profoundly changed her perspective. “I would run into people in the grocery store or on the street who were either directly affected by my decisions, perhaps as defendants or victims, or with people who strongly agreed or disagreed with them. That burned into my consciousness that our decisions affect real people. And it prepared me well for the position I hold today and the consequential decisions this Court is called upon to make.”

Broniec noted her “legal horizons expanded” as she began to serve on statewide judiciary committees and associations, but “I was still just a small-town girl in small-town Montgomery City. That kept me grounded and rooted, and I will continue to bring those values of decency, humility and respect to this job.”

In closing, Broniec thanked her family members – including her husband, her daughters and her twin sister – but especially noted the impact of her grandparents.

“Whatever the governor saw in me, whatever he deemed worthy in me, would not have been there without my personal heroes in my life, my grandparents. They stepped in and raised my twin sister and me and instilled in us by word and example: love, faith, respect, humility, hard work, education, and belief in yourself and God. My grandmother would say, ‘you can be anything you want to be, you just have to get an education first.’ And she was right!”

Broniec earned her bachelor of arts, summa cum laude, in business administration from what is now William Woods University in Fulton and her law degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law. She worked as an assistant prosecutor, first in Warren County and then in Lincoln County, before becoming the Montgomery County prosecutor for seven years. She was the associate circuit judge in Montgomery County for 14 years before her October 2020 appointment to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District. She was serving as that court’s chief judge at the time of her appointment to the Supreme Court of Missouri in September 2023. She has earned a Women’s Justice Award for Public Service and is a member of Grace Lutheran Church in Montgomery City.

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Chief Justice Mary R. Russell greets the audience to open the investiture ceremony for Judge Kelly C. Broniec:

Evan Rodriguez, general counsel for Governor Michael L. Parson, speaks to the audience: