Howard A. Johnson – UM Law Grad – WW 1 Pilot – Mt. Supreme Court Chief Justice
Howard A. Johnson – W.W. 1 Pilot – 1st U of M Law Graduate to Become Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice
Former chief justice of state court dies
Butte (AP) – Last rites are being arranged in San Leandro, Calif., for Howard A. Johnson, former chief justice of the Montana Supreme Court. Johnson, 80, died Saturday in a San Leandro hospital.
The Butte attorney was elected chief justice in 1939 for an unexpired term, then was elected to a six-year term.
He was the first University of Montana Law School graduate to serve as Montana’s chief justice.
Johnson retired from the court in 1946 and returned to Butte to practice law until 1972, when he moved to California.
He served in the Montana Legislature in 1921 as a representative from Silver Bow County. A Republican, he was Jefferson County attorney for several years in the 1920s and was a U.S. assistant attorney under Wellington Rankin in 1930.
Born in Beloit, Wis., in 1893, he was raised in Illinois and attended a normal college there. He entered the UM Law School in 1915, graduating in 1917.
Johnson was a flier in the Army Air Corps in World War I. He trained in Texas and France, and received wings from both the American and French governments. He was injured in an airplane crash in France and was hospitalized about one year. He then began practice in Whitehall.
He is survived by his wife and two sons.
The above obituary appeared in The Independent-Record (Helena, Montana) on June 11, 1974.
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Howard Johnson married Ceil Maillet Badding who was a granddaughter of Missoula Pioneer Louis Maillet.