20th-century American judges

Curtis LeRoy Hansen (April 18, 1933 – October 27, 2023) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico.

James Louis Browning Jr. (December 8, 1932 – January 12, 2016) was a California jurist. He served as United States Attorney for the Northern District of California from 1969 to 1977 and later as a municipal, then state judge. He was the lead prosecutor in the sensational case that sent newspaper heiress Patty Hearst to prison in 1976.

Dick Yin Wong (September 13, 1920 – December 26, 1978) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii.

Thomas Tang (January 11, 1922 – July 18, 1995) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1977 to 1995. Tang was the first American of Chinese descent to become a U.S. federal judge.

John Malach Shaw (November 14, 1931 – December 24, 1999) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Robert Witherspoon Hemphill (May 10, 1915 – December 25, 1983) was a United States representative from South Carolina and later was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina.

Robert Overton Lesher (April 6, 1921 – May 10, 2005) was a justice of the Supreme Court of Arizona from September 20, 1960, to December 12, 1960.Lester attended University of Arizona for law school, graduating first in his class in 1949 alongside Mo Udall, Raul H. Castro and Samuel P. Goddard. Lesher took the Bar exam in July, 1949 and placed first among 60 candidates.Governor Paul Fannin appointed Lesher to the court after J. Mercer Johnson resigned to return to private practice. At 39, Lesher was the youngest justice in the court's history. Barry Goldwater campaigned for Lesher during his reelection campaign. Lesher lost re-election to a full term to Democrat Renz L. Jennings, with Lesher getting 61,210 votes to Jennings' 96,824. He died on May 10, 2005.

William Andrew Holohan (July 1, 1928 – July 23, 2010) was a justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, serving from 1972 until his retirement in 1989. Holohan served as chief justice from 1982 to 1987.Holohan served as an Assistant United States Attorney to then–United States Attorney Jack D. H. Hays. Holohan was considered conservative in his legal and political views but progressive in judicial reform.
In 1988, Holohan wrote the opinion of the court in Green v. Osborne, a 4–1 decision that canceled a recall election for Evan Mecham because Mecham already had been impeached and removed as governor." Other notable opinions include a "1982 reversal of a lower-court ruling that declared Arizona Downs' lease at Turf Paradise to be unconstitutional and a violation of antitrust laws."

Robert Mahealani Ming Seto (born Robert Ming Seto in 1936) is a law professor, and a former judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims from 1982 to 1987.
Born in Canton, China, Seto received a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Saint Louis University in 1962, and a Juris Doctor from the Saint Louis University School of Law in 1968. He later received an LL.M. in Government Contract Law from the George Washington University Law School.Seto was an assistant circuit attorney for the Felony Division of St. Louis, Missouri from 1968 to 1969, then became patent counsel to Monsanto Chemical Co. from 1969 to 1970, and deputy corporation counsel in the Division of Legal Memorandums and Opinions for the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, from 1970 to 1971. Seto then held several staff positions in the United States Senate, serving as Republican Minority Counsel to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging from 1971 to 1973, then as legislative counsel to the Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1974, and then chief patent counsel to U.S. Sen. Hiram Fong of Hawaii, for the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, from 1975 to 1976.Seto was a senior patent litigation attorney for the United States International Trade Commission from 1976 to 1981. He became a trial judge of the United States Court of Claims in 1981, and on October 1, 1982 he was elevated by operation of law to a new seat on the United States Court of Federal Claims authorized by 96 Stat. 27. He resigned on June 20, 1987, to become an administrative judge for the Board of Contract Appeals of the United States Department of Agriculture, a position he held until 1998. Since 1998, Seto has been a professor at Regent University School of Law.In 2005, Seto "suffered a debilitating stroke that impaired him both physically and emotionally". In a disciplinary action in 2011, Seto agreed to be voluntarily suspended from practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office for four years for misconduct in connection with the practice of his son, Jeffrey. The settlement stipulated that Seto had "assisted his son in the unauthorized practice of patent and trademark law while his son was employed as a patent examiner at the Office", a position that precluded the son from practicing before the office. Seto was reciprocally suspended from practice by the Supreme Court of Hawaii on January 5, 2012, and by the Supreme Court of the United States on April 30, 2012.

Joseph Clemens Howard Sr. (December 9, 1922 – September 16, 2000) was the first African American to win an election as judge for the Baltimore City Supreme Bench and was later appointed by President Jimmy Carter to be a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, becoming the first African American to serve on that bench as well.