15 September 2025

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, plans to convene court, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Monday, October 6, 2025, at the Chariton County Courthouse in Keytesville, Missouri.

A panel consisting of Presiding Judge Alok Ahuja, Judge Mark D. Pfeiffer, and Judge Karen King Mitchell will hear oral arguments in four cases on the docket. After the oral arguments, the judges will take time to discuss the court system and take general questions from the gallery.

Ahuja will preside over the proceedings in Keytesville. He was appointed to the Western District in 2007. Previously, he practiced law in Washington D.C. and Kansas City. Pfeiffer joined the Western District in 2009. Before his appointment to the judiciary, he practiced law in Springfield and Columbia. Mitchell was appointed to the Western District in 2009. Prior to that, she spent more than 20 years in the Missouri attorney general’s office and then served as Missouri’s director of revenue.

The court regularly convenes court in Kansas City. For more than 25 years, however, the court has held dockets in several of the 45 counties in the court’s jurisdiction, which includes all of northwest Missouri and most of central Missouri. The court hears oral arguments outside of Kansas City to give individuals an opportunity to observe a part of the judicial system they normally do not see and to familiarize those attending with the court’s role in the judicial system.

Attachment: summaries of cases to be argued

Contact: Kimberly K. Boeding, clerk of court

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District

(816) 889-3600