TOPEKA—The names of three nominees to fill the vacancy on the state Supreme Court being created by the September 4 retirement of Justice Edward Larson were submitted to the governor for appointment this morning.
Nominated are Shawnee County District Judge Marla J. Luckert, 47; Kansas City, KS, attorney M. Warren McCamish, 55; and Lawton R. Nuss, 49, a Salina attorney. Gov. Bill Graves will have 60 days in which to make an appointment to the Court. The three were nominated by the Supreme Court Nominating Commission, a nine-member panel consisting of a lawyer and non-lawyer from each of the four congressional districts plus an attorney chairman selected in an at-large election by registered members of the state bar.
Judge Luckert has been chief judge of the Third Judicial District, a one-county district consisting of Shawnee County, since 2000. She has been a district judge since April 1992. Before that, she was in private practice in the Topeka law firm of Goodell, Stratton, Edmonds & Palmer, which included eight years as a partner and two and a half years as an associate. She also has taught courses on health law and bioethics at the Washburn University School of Law during her career.
She is a 1992 graduate of the National Judicial College judges' general jurisdiction course, a 1980 graduate of the Washburn law school and a 1977 graduate of Washburn University.
McCamish has been practicing law in Kansas City for 30 years, including 26 years as a member of the law firm of Williamson & Cubbison. In addition to his private practice, McCamish has been inducted as a Fellow in the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers and since 1998 has served as a member of the Kansas Board for Discipline of Attorneys. He also has served in the part-time position of Judge of the Municipal Court of Edwardsville since 1975.
He is a 1973 graduate of the University of Kansas School of Law and a 1968 KU graduate with a BS in Business Administration.
Nuss has been in private practice with the firm of Clark, Mize & Linville, Chartered, Salina, for the past 20 years, achieving shareholder and vice president status beginning in 1988. In addition to a wide-ranging private practice, he served as special prosecutor for the City of Salina from 1994-96 and has represented the Salina School Board since 1984. Nuss also has been a federal court mediator since his appointment to that part-time position in 1992.
While a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, Nuss served as a combat engineering officer and as a legal officer, handing courts-martial, administrative discharge hearings and matters falling under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. His military career was rounded out by advising the battalion commander on legal matters for 1,300 Marines in the United States, Okinawa, Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan.
He is a 1982 graduate of the KU School of Law and a 1975 graduate of the university's undergraduate program.