Weber bio: Madison County prosecutor moves to the bench

Don Weber, who will be sworn-in as resident circuit judge on Wednesday, currently maintains a private law practice and is serving a third appointment as an assistant Madison County state's attorney. He was elected State's Attorney in 1980.

A Madison County native, Weber, 57, of Troy, passed the muster of a seven-member screening committee appointed by Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier.

Thomas Long, chairman of the First National Bank of Bank of Grant Park and an attorney and certified public accountant with Farrell, Hunter, Hamilton and Julian, was the chair of Karmeier's screening committee.

Other members included Gordon R. Broom a partner with Burroughs, Hepler, Broom, Macdonald, Hebrank & True in Edwardsville; William H. Hoagland, a partner with Hoagland, Fitzgerald, Smith & Pranaitis in Alton; Philipi J. Lading, an attorney with Roth & Evans in Granite City; J. William Lucco, a partner with Lucco, Brown, Threlkeld & Dawson in Edwardsville, and the president of the Madison County Bar Association; Donald L. Metzger, practicing at the law offices of Donald L. Metzger in Edwardsville; and Robert J. Walters, executive director emeritus for Southwestern Illinois Industrial Association.

Weber attended John Marshall Law School, where he was appointed to the Law Review. He subsequently transferred to St. Louis University School of Law, graduating cum laude in 1975.

In addition to being a member of the Illinois bar, he has been admitted to practice in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and before various federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States.

After law school, Weber was appointed assistant state's attorney under Nicholas Byron. In 1989 he was appointed to serve as an assistant state's attorney under former State's Attorney William Haine and served until 1991.

In 1997, current Madison County State's Attorney William Mudge appointed Weber as an assistant, and he has prosecuted several major felony cases since that time.

He was also appointed to fill a temporary vacancy as state's attorney for Ford County in 1988. In addition, he won the Republican nomination to fill a vacancy on the Illinois Supreme Court in 1992. Weber has been a member of the Illinois Supreme Court's Capital Litigation Trial Bar since 2001 and has handled more than 100 criminal trials.

He has taught trial advocacy at St. Louis University Law School, been a faculty member at the National College of District Attorneys, served as an Assistant Attorney General under Tyrone Fahner and helped author two nonfiction works that were New York Times bestsellers "Precious Victims" and "Silen Witness."