Platte County First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Mark Gibson has been named as one of two prosecutors in the nation to receive this year's Distinguished Prosecutor Award from the National District Attorneys Association.

The annual award recognizes prosecutors who have distinguished themselves among their peers as they seek justice, hold offenders accountable, and protect the rights of victims.

Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd said, "Mark Gibson is a truly phenomenal career prosecutor. He has spent his entire career in prosecution, and all of Kansas City is fortunate that he's spent the past two decades prosecuting in Platte County."

Gibson began his career as an Assistant Attorney General upon his graduation from the University of Missouri Law School in 1991. He then served as the First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Johnson County, Missouri from 1995 to 2004. Since 2004, he has served as the First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Platte County.

As First Assistant, Gibson supervises thirteen other assistant prosecuting attorneys, and he has mentored dozens others during his tenure.

"Mark excels at teaching young lawyers how to zealously but ethically practice law," Zahnd said. "Good prosecutors embrace the special duty not just to win a case but to see that justice is done, and that's what Mark does himself and teaches others to do."

Gibson continues to carry his own caseload of serious felonies. Among dozens of other trials, in December 2021, he obtained four first degree murder convictions in the only quadruple murder case in modern Platte County history. In 2020, he secured a first degree murder conviction for a family of four teenage children whose mother killed their father—a circumstantial case from 2007 that took years to build. And he served as a special prosecutor in an Andrew County murder-for-hire scheme in 2009, convicting all four men involved.

Gibson has also frequently presented seminars on sexual assault prosecutions, courtroom testimony, jury selection, and other issues to law enforcement officers, medical personnel, and fellow prosecutors. He serves as a legal instructor at the Kansas City Police Department Academy.

Gibson said, "When I started law school in 1988, I wanted to be a prosecutor. And for the past 34 years I have been able to come to work every day getting to do the only job I ever wanted.  I love having a job where I can help protect my community and also train the next generation of prosecutors who will help keep Platte County safe."

Gibson is a previous recipient of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys Outstanding Service Award, which is given annually to an outstanding assistant prosecuting attorney in Missouri.

A photo of  Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd (left) and First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Mark Gibson with the  National District Attorneys Association's Distinguished Prosecutor Award is attached. If you need additional information, please contact Tanya Faherty, the media liaison for our office.