Federal Court — MO
Western District of Missouri
Federal Court Sentencing Patterns
Aggregate docket intelligence for the Western District of Missouri compiled from verified federal court records. Judge caseload counts, criminal docket fractions, and sentencing departure rates — never a prediction about a specific defendant.
Generated June 19, 2026
District Aggregate
Total Dockets
87,734
indexed in corpus
Judges Indexed
29
with docket data
Avg Criminal Fraction
18.5%
across district judges
Booker Inflection
—
mean downward departure
Criminal fraction = criminal dockets ÷ total dockets per judge, averaged across the district. Booker inflection = mean downward-departure rate for judges in this district per USSC FY14-23. Aggregate frequencies only — not a prediction about any specific case.
Top Judges by Docket Volume
Judges ranked by total indexed docket count. Criminal fraction reflects the share of their docket classified as criminal (vs. civil).
| Judge | Total Dockets | Criminal Dockets | Criminal Fraction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scott Wright | 8,584 | 3,864 | 45.0% |
| Fernando Gaitan | 7,963 | 1,820 | 22.9% |
| Dean Whipple | 7,794 | 2,014 | 25.8% |
| Gary Fenner | 6,433 | 1,708 | 26.6% |
| Howard Sachs | 6,412 | 1,930 | 30.1% |
| Nanette Laughrey | 6,406 | 1,450 | 22.6% |
| Ortrie Smith | 5,334 | 1,390 | 26.1% |
| David Kays | 3,954 | 659 | 16.7% |
| Russell Clark | 3,630 | 1,648 | 45.4% |
| Brian Wimes | 3,142 | 472 | 15.0% |
Counts reflect dockets indexed as of corpus build date.
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This is legal information, not legal advice. Aggregate data from verified public court records. Nothing here predicts a specific outcome.