How do judges of the Supreme Court of Missouri reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

Supreme Court of Missouri / Joined 2008 / Active

Zel Fischer

Justice, Supreme Court of Missouri

Zel Fischer is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri, serving since 2008. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1963 · age 63
Tenure: Since 2008 · 17 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2008	Supreme Court of Missouri	–	–

Education

William Jewell College
University of Missouri-Kansas City

Judicial Record

In our data, Fischer authored 145 published opinions for the court (2008–2025), plus 29 dissents and 27 concurrences. Most cited: Richard E. Ivie, Jimmie R. Ivie, LaDonna Small, and Bernard Ivie v. Arnold L. Smith and Sidney B. Smith (394 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 105 of these were attributed to Fischer by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2014	Richard E. Ivie, Jimmie R. Ivie, LaDonna Small, and Bernard Ivie v. Arnold L. Smith and Sidney B. Smith	439 S.W.3d 189	394
2015	Charles K. Moore v. State of Missouri· Concurrence†	458 S.W.3d 822	244
2011	Goerlitz v. City of Maryville	333 S.W.3d 450	193
2012	Pearson v. Koster· Concurrence†	367 S.W.3d 36	184
2012	State v. Miller†	372 S.W.3d 455	146
2014	In the Interest of: J.A.R., D.K.R., and A.E.R., Children Under Seventeen Years of Age, Greene County Juvenile Office v. D.G.R.	426 S.W.3d 624	141
2011	Howard v. City of Kansas City	332 S.W.3d 772	136
2011	Moore v. Ford Motor Co.· Concurrence†	332 S.W.3d 749	123
2009	Parktown Imports, Inc. v. Audi of America, Inc.	278 S.W.3d 670	121
2014	Walter Barton v. State of Missouri	432 S.W.3d 741	116
2010	State v. Deck	303 S.W.3d 527	98
2016	State of Missouri v. Robert Blake Blurton· Concurrence†	484 S.W.3d 758	94
2009	Gehrke v. State· Concurrence†	280 S.W.3d 54	91
2013	Badahman v. Catering St. Louis†	395 S.W.3d 29	88
2012	Brown v. Missouri Secretary of State· Concurrence†	370 S.W.3d 637	88

Showing the 15 most-cited of 201 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Supreme Court of Missouri reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court is Zel Fischer on?: Zel Fischer is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

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17 years on the Supreme Court of Missouri. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).