The Kansas Sentencing Commission (KSSC) announces the appointment of The Honorable Stacey Donovan as Vice Chair of the Commission. Judge Donovan graduated from Simmons College in Boston, MA and then from KU Law School. After graduation in 1997, she was hired at the Third Judicial District Public Defender Office in Topeka as a felony trial attorney. She became the Chief Public Defender in 2011. Before taking the bench in Douglas County in 2020, she was a member of the Topeka Bar Association, Women’s Attorney Association of Topeka, the Topeka Criminal Defense Bar, a governor for the 2nd District of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, chaired the Shawnee County Jail Public Relations board, and was an inaugural member of the Supreme Court Kansas Task Force for Lawyer Well-Being. She served on the Kansas Sentencing Commission from 2015-2020. Her latest appointment to the Commission was by Supreme Court Chief Justice Marla Luckert in July. She has been an adjunct Trial Advocacy professor at KU since 2008. Currently she presides over a felony criminal docket and conflict CINC cases. Judge Donovan is married and has two daughters.
Judge Donovan replaces Judge W. Lee Fowler, Emporia, on the Commission.