U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is one of the thirteen U.S. courts of appeals, the intermediate appellate tier of the federal judiciary. It hears appeals from the federal district courts within the Eighth Circuit, which covers Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. Its decisions bind those courts unless reviewed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
| Judge | Appointed by | Since |
|---|---|---|
| Pasco Middleton Bowman II | Reagan (R) | 1983 |
| Roger Leland Wollman | Reagan (R) | 1985 |
| James B. Loken | Bush (R) | 1990 |
| David Rasmussen Hansen | Bush (R) | 1991 |
| Morris Sheppard Arnold | Bush (R) | 1992 |
| Michael Joseph Melloy | Bush (R) | 2002 |
| Lavenski R. Smith | Bush (R) | 2002 |
| Steven M. Colloton | Bush (R) | 2003 |
| William Duane Benton | Bush (R) | 2004 |
| Raymond W. Gruender | Bush (R) | 2004 |
| Bobby E. Shepherd | Bush (R) | 2006 |
| Jane Louise Kelly | Obama (D) | 2013 |
| Ralph R. Erickson | Trump (R) | 2017 |
| Leonard Steven Grasz | Trump (R) | 2018 |
| Jonathan Allen Kobes | Trump (R) | 2018 |
| David Ryan Stras | Trump (R) | 2018 |
The federal trial courts whose appeals this circuit reviews.
How a judge gets here. Each judge is nominated by a president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, then holds a numbered seat, for life, until they take senior status, or until they leave the bench. Open any judge to see who appointed them, how the Senate voted, and whom they succeeded, a chain that runs back to 1891.
Source: FJC Biographical Directory. Data last verified 2026-06-28. Verify against the primary source before relying.