| Term Start: | February 1, 2024 |
| Office1: | Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia |
| Term Start1: | March 16, 2016 |
| Term End1: | March 16, 2023 |
| Predecessor1: | Richard W. Roberts |
| Successor1: | James Boasberg |
| Term Start2: | December 27, 2010 |
| Term End2: | February 1, 2024 |
| Appointer2: | Barack Obama |
| Predecessor2: | Paul L. Friedman |
| Successor2: | vacant |
| Birth Date: | 3 December 1956 |
| Birth Place: | Fort Benning, Georgia, U.S. |
| Education: | Bryn Mawr College (BA) Columbia University (JD) |
Beryl Alaine Howell (born December 3, 1956) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She was district's chief judge from 2016 to 2023. As chief judge, she supervised federal grand juries in the District, including for the Mueller special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and investigations into attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.[1] [2]
Howell was born in 1956 in Fort Benning (now Fort Moore), Georgia.[3] She is the daughter of an Army officer and is Jewish.[4] She attended elementary and secondary school in six states and Germany.[5]
Howell graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy with honors. From 1978 to 1980, Howell worked as a legal assistant at the law firm Shanley & Fisher (now part of Faegre Drinker). She then attended Columbia Law School, graduating in 1983 with a Juris Doctor as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
After law school, Howell was a law clerk for Judge Dickinson Richards Debevoise of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey from 1983 to 1984. From 1985 to 1987, she was in private practice as an associate at the New York City law firm of Schulte Roth & Zabel.
From 1987 to 1993, Howell was an assistant United States attorney for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, where she became deputy chief of the Narcotics section.[6] From 1993 to 2003, Howell served on the staff of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary as a senior advisor to Chairman Patrick Leahy, including as the committee's general counsel starting in 1997.
While working for Senator Leahy, Howell helped craft the E-FOIA amendments, which expanded electronic access to government records.[7] She also helped Sen. Leahy fend off proposals to impose new limits on the FOIA.[7] In 2001, she was honored by the Coalition to Support and Expand the Freedom of Information Act,[7] and in 2004, her FOIA work was honored by the Society of Professional Journalists.[6]
Howell was involved in crafting numerous pieces of legislation for the investigation and prosecution of computer crime and copyright infringement, including the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA),[8] the No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act),[6] [8] the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),[6] [8] and the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999.[6] [8]
Howell was involved in national security issues, including the creation of the USA PATRIOT Act,[6] [8] which she defended in 2005 in an article for the Pennsylvania Bar Association Quarterly.
The Center for Democracy and Technology lists Howell as a "board alum".[9]
From 2004 to 2010, she served as a member of the United States Sentencing Commission after being appointed by President George W. Bush.[6]
In November 2023, Howell received the Champion Award for people who advance opportunities for women in "the white collar field".[10] In her acceptance speech, she said: "My D.C. judicial colleagues and I regularly see the impact of big lies at the sentencing of hundreds, hundreds of individuals who have been convicted for offense conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, when they disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election at the U.S. Capitol." She also cited historian Heather Cox Richardson’s book Democracy Awakening.
In response, Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, filed a complaint of judicial misconduct in which she alleged that Howell's remarks were "conduct unbecoming of a federal judge".[11]
From 2004 to 2009,[6] [12] [13] Howell was executive vice president,[7] executive managing director,[14] and general counsel[14] at Stroz Friedberg, a global digital risk management and investigations firm. Howell's work at Stroz Friedberg included lobbying on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America,[6] [13] [15] [16] and, briefly, Universal Music Group.[6] [17]
In 2008, Howell served as a member of the Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency, sponsored by bipartisan think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.[14] [18]
Howell teaches legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the American University's Washington College of Law.[19] [20]
On July 14, 2010, Howell was nominated by President Barack Obama to the seat vacated by Judge Paul L. Friedman, who assumed senior status on December 31, 2009.[21] She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 22, 2010. She received her judicial commission on December 27, 2010. She served as the chief judge from March 17, 2016 to March 17, 2023. She assumed senior status on February 1, 2024. A 2015 analysis by Ravel Law found Howell to be the second most-cited district court judge appointed in the previous five years.[22]
In 2011, Harold Hodge Jr. stood outside the U.S. Supreme Court wearing a sign that protested the American government's treatment of black and Hispanic people.[23] He did so in violation of a 1949 federal law that makes such protests a crime. Hodge sued the Marshal of the United States Supreme Court and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia under the First Amendment. In a June 2013 decision, Howell struck down the law as violating the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.[24] The judge wrote, "The absolute prohibition on expressive activity in the statute is unreasonable, substantially overbroad and irreconcilable with the First Amendment." The defendants appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which reversed Howell's decision and reinstated the law as it applies to the Supreme Court Plaza and steps. Hodge v. Talkin, 799 F. 3d 1145 (D.C. Cir. 2015).
In 2018, Howell struck down a regulation of the Federal Election Commission allowing dark money groups, certain nonprofit organizations engaged in political activities, to conceal their donors. She wrote that the regulation "blatantly undercuts the congressional goal of fully disclosing the sources of money flowing into federal political campaigns, and thereby suppresses the benefits intended to accrue from disclosure."[25] The Supreme Court later declined to review the decision.[26]
In that same year, Howell became the supervising judge for the grand jury working for special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[1] On October 25, 2019, she ruled in favor of the House Judiciary Committee, which had sought grand jury materials from the Mueller investigation, finding their impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump to be a judicial proceeding.[27] Justice Department attorneys had previously asserted that congressional investigators had "not yet exhausted [their] available discovery tools,” arguments Howell said "smack of farce," as the administration had openly stated it would stonewall the investigation.[28]
Howell is married to Michael Rosenfeld, an executive producer at National Geographic Television & Film.[7] They have three children.[7]