Randall M. Howe

Randall M. Howe was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals on May 29, 2012, by Governor Janice K. Brewer, and currently serves as Chief Judge. From 2008 until his appointment, he served in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, first as an Assistant United States Attorney and then as the Deputy Chief of the Appellate Division. From 2001 to 2008, he was the Chief Counsel of the Criminal Appeals Section of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. For the previous 12 years, he served as an attorney first in the Criminal Appeals Section and then as the appellate supervisor in the Liability Management Section. He personally represented the state and federal governments in more than 400 appeals and habeas actions and has argued 84 cases in the Arizona Supreme Court, the Arizona Court of Appeals, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Judge Howe argued Clark v. Arizona before the United States Supreme Court in April 2006.

Judge Howe graduated from Arizona State University College of Business, Summa Cum Laude, in 1985 and Arizona State University College of Law, Cum Laude, in 1988. In 2002, he received the Young Alumnus Award from the Arizona State University Alumni Association.

Judge Howe has been involved in many activities with the Arizona State Bar, the American Bar Association, and the Arizona state courts. He served as a State Bar disciplinary hearing officer from 1989 to 2008. He chaired the State Bar’s Committee on Persons with Disabilities in the Legal Profession from 2005 to 2007 and the Executive Council of the State Bar’s Appellate Practice Section from 2011 to 2012. He served on the ABA’s Commission on Disability Rights from 2017 to 2019, and currently serves on an ABA working group to develop model rules of professional conduct for law clerks and court employees. He was a member of the Arizona Supreme Court’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee from 2014 to 2019. He currently serves on the Arizona Supreme Court’s Commission on Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion and from 2020 to 2023 chaired the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One’s Connecting with the Community Program, which brings appellate oral arguments to local high schools and community colleges.

Judge Howe has been involved in legal education throughout his career. He has served as faculty for more than 40 seminars on criminal and appellate law and other legal education topics. He has also written several articles for the State Bar’s Arizona Attorney Magazine, as well as many newspaper articles for The Arizona Republic. For Judge Howe’s work, the State Bar awarded Judge Howe the Distinguished Public Lawyer Award in 2007, the Michael C. Cudahy Criminal Justice Award in 2013, and the Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Award in 2019.

Judge Howe has also been involved in the disability community since 1988. He served as Chair of the Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities from 2004 to 2005. He served as President of the Board of Directors of the Arizona Center for Disability Law and Chair of the Board of Directors of Arizona Bridge to Independent Living from 2010 to 2012. He also served as a member and as vice-chair of United Cerebral Palsy of Central Arizona Board of Directors. In 2005, he received the Mayor’s Award from the City of Phoenix Mayor’s Commission on Disability Issues for his leadership in increasing public awareness about issues affecting people with disabilities. In 2015, he received the Vision Award from the Arizona Center for Disability Law, and in 2016, he received the Spirit of Ability Award from Ability360 (formerly known as Arizona Bridge to Independent Living), one of Arizona’s Independent Living Centers. In 2020, he received the Laura Dozer Award from United Cerebral Palsy of Central Arizona for his work in the disability community.