Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd has announced he is running for a record seventh term as Platte County Prosecuting Attorney.
First elected in 2002, he is now the longest-serving prosecutor in Platte County history. He also has the longest tenure of any elected prosecutor currently serving the Kansas City metro.
Zahnd
“Experience is irreplaceable in this job,” Zahnd said in his announcement release. “I know I’m a much better prosecutor today than I was 23 years ago. Prosecutors don’t make policy — we enforce the law — so it is good that there are no term limits for the office. I believe Platte County is safer because of my long tenure in the office.”
Zahnd leads an office of nearly 30 employees, including fourteen attorneys. The office handles thousands of cases each year, ranging from traffic offenses to first degree murder.
Zahnd has personally convicted dozens of criminals in Platte County for murder, rape, robbery, assault, and other violent felonies, including the only quadruple murder in modern Platte County history. He has also served as special prosecutor in a northwest Missouri murder-for-hire scheme, convicting all four men involved.
“After more than two decades trying cases,” Zahnd said, “I still get a charge every time I enter a courtroom to speak on behalf of the State of Missouri and the people of Platte County. It’s been my great honor and solemn responsibility to advocate for victims of crime as I work to keep Platte County families, workers, and businesses safe.”
Zahnd is also a strong supporter of diversion programs and treatment courts for nonviolent offenders. His office operates Platte CARES (Community Alternative with Restorative and Educational Services) and drug, DWI, mental health, and veterans’ courts programs.
Zahnd has made it a priority to vigorously prosecute crimes against children. Under Zahnd’s leadership, Platte County’s Cyber Crimes Unit became one of the first in Missouri to hunt down and prosecute Internet predators. Zahnd has been recognized on national television for his work to protect children on the Web, and a local TV station has called him “a leader in the fight against Internet predators.” In 2005, Zahnd’s work with the community to combat teen drinking was recognized in the White House’s National Drug Control Strategy Annual Report.
Zahnd has also worked to improve Missouri’s criminal laws. In 2006, he successfully pushed the legislature to pass Jessica’s Law to put child rapists in prison for life and enact mandatory sentences for Internet predators. At the bill signing ceremony, Missouri’s Governor called Zahnd “a leader in law enforcement.”
In 2014, Zahnd wrote a Missouri constitutional amendment to allow juries to know about prior criminal acts of repeat child sex offenders, and he chaired the successful effort to pass that amendment. In 2005 and again in 2010, he helped write laws to increase penalties against repeat drunk drivers. And in 2009, he wrote the law requiring police to record interrogations of people suspected of committing dangerous felonies.
Zahnd was recognized as Missouri’s Prosecutor of the Year in 2014 for his efforts to establish best practices for prosecutors, and he has led national discussions on that topic. He is one of only two Missouri prosecutors selected in the inaugural class of “Super Lawyers,” an honor given to the top attorneys in Missouri and Kansas. In 2007, he was selected as an “Up and Coming Lawyer” by Missouri Lawyers Weekly. He was also named one of Ingram’s magazine’s “40 Under 40” in 2004, recognizing him as one of the most influential business, government, and community leaders in Kansas City.
Zahnd is a member of the board and past President of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. He is also a Vice-President of the National District Attorneys Association, where he serves as a member of the executive committee and chairs the legislative committee.
Zahnd and his wife Tracy have been married for more than three decades. The Zahnds have two adult sons. Mrs. Zahnd has a master’s degree in education. She taught third, fourth, and fifth grades in two public school districts and preschool at local church. She has served as a PTA president, on the executive committee of Northland Habitat for Humanity, on the board of Tri-County Mental Health Services, and as chairwoman of the Platte County Republican Central Committee.
“I am so lucky to have the wife and kids I do,” Zahnd said. “The demands of my work have often taken me away from family gatherings, but Tracy and our boys have never wavered in their support of me and the job I know I was born to do.”