Jack Gant, a longtime Jackson County judge and state senator, dies
Longtime Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jack Gant, who served in the Missouri Senate and once ran for Congress, died at his home Sunday in Independence after a recent hospitalization. He was 90.
“He wanted to die here at home, and he did it his way,” daughter Marcy Brehm said Monday. “I’m proud of him for that. He was a great man. I’m glad to call him Dad.”
Gant had been suffering from myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease.
Gant served 10 years in the state Senate and was one of three candidates in the 1976 Democratic primary for Missouri’s 4th Congressional District seat, which was won by then-state Sen. Ike Skelton.
Gant retired after 21 years as a circuit judge and became a senior judge in 1998.
“You’re not supposed to make easy decisions or popular decisions, but to do what you think is right,” Gant told The Star then upon his imminent retirement.
Defense attorney John P. O’Connor attested to Gant’s courage.
“He doesn’t always do the politically correct thing,” O’Connor said. “He’s not afraid to take the heat.”
Gant attended Northeast High School and joined the Marines after graduation. He guarded Japanese war crimes trials in Guam after World War II.
When he returned, Gant earned his law degree and married Beverly Jean Kirkham in 1951. They had five children.
Gant became a juvenile court judge in Kansas City in the 1980s.
In 1983 he became the first Missouri judge to allow the battered spouse defense in the case of an Independence woman who killed her husband. The wife was acquitted by a jury.
In 1993 he became the first Missouri judge to allow cameras in a courtroom.
Gant forged a court compromise in the 1980s for residents of eastern Jackson County who did not want to go downtown for court business. Blue Ridge Boulevard became the “range line.” Cases from the east would be heard in Independence and from the west in downtown Kansas City.
This story was originally published December 24, 2018 at 4:18 PM.
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