Judge Cristian Stevens

On May 6, 2025, President Trump nominated Judge Cristian Stevens to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. 

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Biography

Stevens earned his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1995, and his J.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law in 1998.

Legal Experience

After graduating from law school, Stevens served as a law clerk for Hon. Pasco M. Bowman II, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, from 1998-1999. From 1999-2002, he worked in private practice.

He then served as the Assistant United States Attorney for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri from 2002-2017. From 2017-2019, he returned to private practice.

From 2019 to 2021, he served as the First Assistant Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General for the Criminal Division in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. He was appointed to the Missouri Court of Appeals in October 2021.

Stevens published a law review article discussing criticism of crack cocaine sentencing guidelines. Cristian M. Stevens, Criticism of Crack Cocaine Sentences Is Not What It Is Cracked Up to Be: A Case of First Impression within the Ongoing Crack vs. Cocaine Debate, 62 Mo. L. Rev. (1997). Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol62/iss4/5 

• The quote that captures his “criticism” includes, “discrepancies in the racial make-up of crack cocaine offenders versus powder cocaine offenders may be due to the simple fact that blacks use and sell crack more.”

• Stevens dissented in an opinion where the majority reversed a circuit court’s summary judgment on a plaintiff’s disability discrimination claim under the Missouri Human Rights Act.  SOURCE