Eric Zahnd

Eric Zahnd is the Prosecuting Attorney for Platte County, Missouri. He was first elected in 2002 and was the youngest elected prosecuting attorney of a first class county in Missouri. He was reelected in 2006. He leads an office of nine attorneys and eight other staff members. The office handles AbOUT 15,000 cases each year, ranging from traffic offenses to first degree [...].

Zahnd has made it a priority to vigorously prosecute crimes against children. Under Zahnd's and Platte County SHERIFF Richard Anderson‘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 The O’Reilly Factor for his work to protect children on the Web, and a local TV station has called Zahnd “a leader in the fight against Internet predators.”

Zahnd personally obtained a 25-year sentence against a man who abused a 4-year-old child and sent photos of his crime over the Internet. In 2004, he tried a man for barging into a birthday party and holding children at gunpoint during a string of armed robberies. The jury convicted the man on all counts, and he is now serving a sentence of life in prison plus 102 years.

Zahnd has fought for stiffer penalties for [...] offenders. In 2006, he successfully pushed the Missouri legislature to pass Jessica’s Law to put child rapists in prison for life and enact tough mandatory sentences for Internet predators. Similarly, in 2005, Zahnd helped write the law to increase penalties against repeat drunk drivers.

Zahnd was 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. In 2005, he was one of only two Missouri prosecutors selected as a “Super Lawyer,” an honor given to the top attorneys in Missouri and Kansas.

Zahnd serves on the board of directors of the Missouri Humanities Council and the executive committee of the William Jewell College Alumni Board of Governors. Prior to his election as prosecuting attorney, he was a member of the Tri-County Domestic Violence Board. Zahnd practiced business litigation with Bryan Cave, one of the largest law firms in the United States, prior to his 2002 election as Prosecuting Attorney. He also worked in the Missouri Attorney General’s office and served as a staff assistant to the Governor’s Commission on Crime.

Zahnd graduated with honors from Duke Law School. He was a member of the Order of the Coif, which recognizes the top 10 percent of law school graduates nationwide. While at Duke, he was editor of a law journal and earned a master’s degree in philosophy. He is the author of an article on Aristotle’s legal philosophy originally published in the journal Law and Contemporary Problems; the article was republished in the book Aristotle and Modern Law.

Zahnd also graduated summa cum laude from William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. He was elected president of the college’s student body his senior year and studied at Cambridge University in England his junior year.

Zahnd is a sixth-generation Missourian. He was raised in Andrew County, where he graduated from Savannah High School first in his class.