The second African-American judge to serve on Missouri’s high court is set to step up as chief justice on Monday.
George W. Draper III will begin his term as chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court on July 1. His term will end on June 30, 2021. Draper succeeds Zel M. Fischer, who remains on the court, in the position.
Appointed to the Supreme Court of Missouri in 2011 by Gov. Jay Nixon, voters retained him in 2012. He is chair of the state’s treatment courts coordinating commission and serves as the court’s liaison to the judiciary’s family court committee as well as its ad hoc committee on racial and ethnic fairness.
Draper, a St. Louis native, received his bachelor of arts in psychology in 1977 from Morehouse College in Atlanta and, following in the footsteps of his father and his wife, received his law degree in 1981 from Howard University in Washington, D.C.
He then clerked for the Honorable Shellie Bowers (also a St. Louis native) of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Draper returned to St. Louis in 1984 as a prosecutor in the circuit attorney’s office, for which was promoted to a team leader position in 1990 and to first assistant in 1993. Since 1996, he also has served as an adjunct professor of law at Saint Louis University, where he teaches trial advocacy.
In July 1994, Draper was appointed as an associate circuit judge of the 21st Judicial Circuit by Gov. Mel Carnahan. Four years later, Carnahan appointed Draper as a circuit judge for the 21st Judicial Circuit. In 2000, Draper was elevated to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, for which he served as the first African-American chief judge from July 2004 through June 2005.
Alisha Shurr was a reporter for The Missouri Times and The Missouri Times Magazine. She joined The Missouri Times in January 2018 after working as a copy editor for her hometown newspaper in Southern Oregon. Alisha is a graduate of Kansas State University.
