Scott Howe

Scott Howe has been a professor at the law school since August 1996. He has substantial experience both as a criminal defense lawyer and as a teacher in the fields of criminal law, criminal procedure and evidence. He earned his B.A., summa cum laude, in economics, from the University of Missouri, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his JD, cum laude, from the University of Michigan, where he was Administrative and Articles Editor of the Michigan Law Review. After law school, Professor Howe worked for five years as an attorney for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, defending indigent persons charged with serious crimes, including first-degree murder. He subsequently served as Deputy Director of the Texas Death Penalty Resource Center in Austin, Texas, representing inmates under execution warrants on Texas' death row. His representation during this period of death-row inmate Kerry Max Cook is recounted in Mr. Cook's acclaimed memoir, Chasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit. Before coming to Chapman, Professor Howe taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas Law School and then became a tenured full professor at Western New England College School of Law. At Chapman, he has been voted Professor of the Year three times by the graduating class. His articles have appeared in a variety of leading law journals, including the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. He is also co-author of the fourth edition of California Criminal Law: Cases and Problems, a casebook published in 2016, and the third edition of Understanding Capital Punishment Law, a treatise published in 2012. Professor Howe served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 1999 to 2007 and twice served as Interim Dean, from 2010 to 2011, and again during the spring of 2016.

Courses Taught:

Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure/Police Practice, and Evidence.

List of Scholarly Publications