Judge Holden has served Greene County courts since 1996. His time on the bench is ending soon.
“On July 31 I will no longer be a regular circuit judge; I will have retired,” Holden said.
But that’s not the day Holden goes off the job. He’s asking to be transferred to “senior judge” status to handle Greene County termination of parental rights cases. His goal is to help the local court system manage those high-priority cases until his replacement can be sworn in.
Holden, who is 68 years old, said he would reach mandatory retirement age of 70 before his current six-year term ends in 2024.
He said a “high point” of his service was his involvement in local “treatment courts.” These courts point offenders with drug problems and mental wellness issues toward treatment and supervision, not merely punishment.
Treatment courts originated in Miami, Florida in the late 1980s. A decade later, Missouri lawmakers added them to this state’s court system. Holden began running drug court in Greene County a few years after that.
Holden said, “Over the years, the research has shown for every dollar put into drug court — meaning judges’ time, treatment, probation, etc. — every dollar put in returns $7 to the community in savings that they are not using up in emergency room or crime, and victims being created. So that’s a pretty good — if you could put in $1 and get a $7 return on anything, you would say that’s a good program.”
Holden acknowledged that these programs weren’t popular when they first began, and that he’s also taken criticism from multiple parts of the community. Some think his judgments were overly lenient.
For example, as KSMU reported back in 2019, #MeToo Springfield called for removing Holden from office because the group disagreed with his rulings related to convicted sex predators.
Holden said he attempted to consider each case in light of the law.
He said, “Well, those people who practice in front of me routinely (will) not always agree with what I do, but I think they will agree for the most part that I research, I study each case, I try to weigh the risk and benefits in each case to the victims, to society, to the defendant. If you look at some of my cases, at many of my cases on domestic violence — the defendants don’t think I’m so lenient.”
Holden’s replacement will be appointed through the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan, adopted in Greene County back in 2008. A local judicial commission selects a panel of three candidates, which are then sent to the Missouri Governor for review and a final decision.