Howard E. Browne

Howard Edgar Browne devoted his life to the practice of law in Nevada. He attended the University of Nevada from 1914 to 1918 and went on to study law at Yale Law School and Harvard Law School, returning to his home state to build a legal career that spanned more than six decades.

Browne served as District Attorney for Lander County, based in Austin, Nevada, from 1922 to 1942. Among the notable matters of his tenure was the 1940 case State of Nevada v. George Shovlin, believed to be the first successful prosecution in Nevada to use fingerprint evidence to secure a conviction. After his years as a public prosecutor, he entered private practice in Reno, where he continued to serve clients from 1945 until 1984.

A fixture of the Nevada bar admitted in 1922, Browne's career bridged the frontier era of the state's judiciary and its modern legal system. He was married to Vera May Haviland, herself a graduate of the University of Nevada. Howard E. Browne died in Reno, Nevada, on April 27, 1990.