Concentration:

Mr. Bowen has extensive experience in the practice of criminal law. He has served as prosecutor, defense counsel and judge. He was the only Alabama member of the capital defense team who represented Eric Robert Rudolph from start to finish. He has represented the Alabama Business Council before the Alabama Supreme Court as amicus curiae (friend of the court) on direct appeal in a landmark case limiting the definition of corporate criminal liability. Mr. Bowen is the current chairman of Alabama Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure and was a member of the Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee for 2006.

Prior to White Arnold & Dowd:

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Bowen was a judge on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals from 1977 to 1995. When first elected in 1977 at the age of 29, he was the youngest appellate judge in the nation. He served as presiding judge for eight years and Chairman of the Judicial Inquiry Commission for six years. At the time of his retirement, Mr. Bowen was the senior judge on the Court and had written more published opinions than any other appellate judge in the history of the State of Alabama. He has also served as a special justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. He was a visiting instructor at the Alabama State Troopers’ Academy and the Alabama Peace Officers’ Standards and Training Center in Selma, Alabama, from 1982 – 1995. Prior to his judgeship, Mr. Bowen served as an Assistant Attorney General.

Practice Areas:

Representative Cases:

State v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 835 So.2d 230 (Ala. Crim. App. 2000), aff’d, 835 So. 2d 234 (Ala. 2002) (corporate criminal liability — Alabama’s perjury statutes did not expressly provide for corporate liability).

United States v. Dollar, 25 F. Supp. 2d 1320, 1326 (N.D. Ala. 1998) (defining “strawman” in connection with the sale of firearms and dismissing the prosecution due to the government’s failure to timely produce impeaching evidence).

Johnson v. Bd. of Control of the Employees’ Retirement Sys. of Alabama, 740 So. 2d 999 (Ala. 1999) (A state circuit judge who meets the eligibility requirements for state retirement does not lose the right to those benefits upon his or her appointment as a United States district judge).

Education and Honors:

Samford University Cumberland School of Law (J.D., 1972)

Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, B.A. (History), cum laude, rank 4/90, 1969

Birmingham Business Journal's Best of the Bar 2007, Appellate Law

Professional Affiliations:

Birmingham Bar Association

Alabama Bar Association

Alabama Criminal Defense Lawyers Association

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers