Beyers named new southwestern Ill. judge

EDWARDSVILLE — A former prosecutor in southwestern Illinois' Madison County is now a judge.

Judges in the state's Third Judicial Circuit voted Ben Beyers to be Ellar Duff's successor as an associate judge.

Duff was not retained in a recent vote of the circuit judges, and Duff was among a dozen applicants for the job.

Beyers had been a felony prosecutor with the county's state's attorney's office since 2007.

He has undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Illinois and lives in Glen Carbon.