On July 27, 2022, only seven months after her appointment to the district court bench in Teton County, Judge Melissa Owens blocked Wyoming’s abortion ban hours after it went into effect.
Until that time, she had worked in relative obscurity — at least outside of legal circles — as a defense attorney, prosecutor, private practice lawyer and municipal judge. Suddenly, she found herself overseeing what has since become a 17-month legal battle over the future of abortion rights in Wyoming, including a first-of-its-kind attempt to ban medication abortions.
Twice state lawmakers have attempted to ban nearly all abortions in Wyoming. And in both instances, Owens halted their implementation while weighing their constitutionality.
The latest iteration of the lawsuit challenging Wyoming’s abortion bans is still playing out, with a major hearing set for Thursday in Jackson.
While far right lawmakers have labeled her a judicial activist, those who know her say she’s well suited to oversee the most controversial court case in Wyoming since a judge in 2014 legalized same-sex marriage. Friends and colleagues describe her as an intelligent, generous person with a great sense of humor who will follow the law.
“I don’t like partisan politics. I don’t like personal politics,” said Jackson Town Councilman Jim Rooks. “So it should be no surprise that I’m a huge fan of Judge Owens. And not because of my personal feelings about some of the issues that she’s had to weigh in on, but just because of the manner in which I’ve seen her perform.”
Wyoming raised
Owens spent her teen years in Jackson, one of seven kids raised by Brenda and Richard Mulligan. Much of the family moved there from New Brunswick, New Jersey, where her dad worked as an attorney and served as mayor.
Rooks met Owens growing up in Jackson, though she was a bit older than him.
“She’s just extraordinary,” he said. “She’s funny. She has an incredible sense of humor, really colorful personality. Sneaky smart … She’s such a people person, her sense of humor, and I think it’s easy for some folks to miss how incredibly intelligent she is.”
Owens, whose assistant said she was unable to comment for this story, earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at Rollins College in Florida followed by a law degree at the University of Wyoming in 1998.
Casper attorney Pam Brondos remembers meeting Owens their freshman year of law school. They’ve been friends for nearly 30 years since.
“I think of fun and smiles and good times with Melissa,” she said, recalling Owens’ good-faith teasing.
Owens somehow balanced a personal life with her education, Brondos recalled.
“I always admired that, that she was always able to kind of keep a little bit of reality when we were in law school,” she said.
Owens is tough and independent, Brondos added. At the same time, she said, Owens is very active in her family’s life and will drop everything to help a friend.
“She’s probably one of the most generous people I’ve ever met,” Brondos said. “We lost a really good friend, a law school classmate a couple years ago, Angela Dougherty. And Melissa was right there, getting a hold of all our close friends and classmates and just kind of being that glue that held us together through that grief.”
Owens once wrote for Wyoming Lawyer that she believed in helping other lawyers “at any time, whether it’s talking through a case or sharing my forms. I believe we should all help each other to be the best we can be, especially in this great state.”
“I think it’s easy for some folks to miss how incredibly intelligent she is.”
Jim Rooks
“My father told me if I wanted to practice in Wyoming, I should attend U.W. Law School because I would have friends and colleagues all over the state,” she added. “And he was right!”
After law school, Owens worked as a deputy public defender in Dallas while her husband went to graduate school there.
She recalled one funny instance working there. Owens wrote that she had told a client to dress for trial like she would for church.
“So she showed up in a canary yellow sweat suit, and even worse, it was fashioned out of material that made scratching and swishing noises with every step she took.”
Then, it was back to Jackson to work as a deputy prosecuting attorney with the Teton County Attorney’s Office and later in private practice.
“I started my own private practice because my family is my priority,” she wrote in a blog post when she was still in that practice. “I have a wonderful balance and I hope that I inspire other attorneys to do the same.”
At that time, she was also a district court commissioner, circuit court magistrate, substance abuse treatment court magistrate, a fee dispute arbitrator for the Wyoming Bar and served on the Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee for the bar.
Then in 2014, she started working as a part-time municipal court judge in Jackson.
“I appointed Melissa because I trusted her judgment,” said former Jackson Mayor Mark Barron. “I found her thoughtful and deliberative. She seemed to be motivated by law, not politics and personalities. And she did a great job for the town.”
As a municipal judge, Owens also earned the friendship of Chief Municipal Court Clerk Jessica Chitwood, who’d started work there the same year.
“On top of everything else she was doing, anytime anybody asks her for help or to mentor or if an intern is looking for something, you know, she’s always ‘yes, absolutely, come in,’” Chitwood said. “She’s lovely.”
Chitwood recalls how Owens would ask about her and her family and make sure folks took a break if they had a long, hard day.
Chitwood misses Owens in the office, she said, but is glad she got the promotion to district court. Now, Chitwood said, she sometimes sees Owens in their shared parking lot and gives her a hug, weighted with concerns.
“I do worry for her and her safety,” she said. “And I really hope that everybody else sees her as she’s doing her job. She is doing it to the best of her skills and judgment and reason.”
Judging Jackson
While still practicing as an attorney, Owens volunteered for the student civics education program We The People, which Jackson Councilman Rooks ran at the time.
Of all the people on Teton County’s bar association roster — of which Rooks recalled a few hundred — he said Owens was the most generous with her time.
“She was just amazing. She’d come in whenever I’d asked her, as many times as she could,” he said. “She was so down to earth and would just talk to them on their level, and give examples from her life and get them to connect it to their lives, and just never took herself too serious[ly] and got them laughing. And they loved her.”
Rooks is now a local politician, but at the time he ran the civics program, he was a teacher.
While Rooks knew Owens growing up, they’re much closer now. She still likes being involved in her kids’ lives and outdoor sports, he said.
“Little known fact: She’s a badass water skier,” he said. “Her whole family is.”
In December 2021, Gov. Mark Gordon appointed Owens to the district court bench, stating “Melissa’s breadth of experience made her uniquely suited for the job.” He later told the Jackson Hole News & Guide “Judge Owens is going to be phenomenal.”
“I look forward to serving the citizens of Teton County with the same sense of ethics, temperament and wisdom that Judge Timothy Day has demonstrated in this position,” Owens said in her own statement at the time.
“I started my own private practice because my family is my priority.”
Melissa Owens
Some perceive a bias in having a judge in Jackson — a blue dot in Wyoming’s red landscape — oversee this contentious abortion suit. (At the time the suit was filed, Jackson was home to Wyoming’s only clinic offering abortions.)
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus has called Owens a “judicial activist,” citing the temporary restraining order she once placed on the state’s near-total abortion ban. Owens has ruled in favor of the bans’ challengers more often than not, most recently allowing their use of expert witnesses and testimony.
In explaining her rulings to stall both abortion bans, Owens cited the likelihood of the case against the bans ultimately succeeding. She then referenced the amendment to the Wyoming’s Constitution that grants residents a right to make their own health care decisions, subject to “reasonable and necessary” legislative restrictions. The state’s legal counsel disagrees that the bans violate that section of the constitution.
Mention the accusations of judicial bias to Rooks and he’s quick to defend his home town and many of the people who live there, including Owens. As for himself, Rooks said he’s a “fierce independent” whose family includes a football coach, oil rig workers, ranchers and hunting guides.
Rooks argues that Owens remains a strict constitutionalist.
“She’s interpreting the Wyoming State Constitution,” he said. “And I think that history will show she’s doing it in an accurate manner. If they want to amend the Wyoming State Constitution, there [are] routes to do that.”
Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette) did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment on his organization’s assertion that Owens is an activist judge.
To make that kind of claim, there has to be evidence, Rooks countered.
“I’m a politician, I know it’s easy for the social media warriors and even elected politicians to make claims,” he said. “Judicial activism, this is a common claim we hear, right? Prove it.”
Casper attorney Brondos agreed, calling the criticism a “knee-jerk reaction” that shows critics’ ignorance. She added that Owens was the right person for this particularly hard job of overseeing such a contentious issue.
“Melissa has the ability to avoid the noise around this case, and I think a lot of other attorneys or judges may not,” she said. “Melissa will follow the law, and I have no doubt that she’s going to make her decision and not be influenced with what’s happening within the political sphere.”
At the same time, Brondos said no matter what Owens rules, no judge wants a decision reversed.
“Having clerked for district court judges and having practiced for 25 years in front of judges, judges don’t like to have their decisions overturned by the Supreme Court,” Brondos said. “Melissa is going, and particularly in this case, she’s going to be as reasoned and follow the law as closely as she can.”
For Bob McLaurin, former Jackson town manager, his description of Owens echoed what her many friends said, adding “she’s got broad shoulders, so she’ll do just fine.”
It’s a description her dad — a long-time Jackson attorney — once used about himself, someone Owens has said she’s long listened to. He was the one who urged her to find balance in her work and life, she once wrote.
“Friends would describe me as funny,” she wrote in 2018. “I love to make people laugh and to laugh at myself. It’s important not to take yourself too seriously.”
Thank you for this article, and thank you Judge Owen for your courage to defend the rights of women to control their own bodies. The government has no business interfering with the reproductive rights of its citizens.
Will you do a “profile” on the good and smart people who are representing the prolife position as well?
The judge is not representing the pro choice position.
She’s not supposed to, but this article gives her away. Everyone knows what is going on here.
“Good and smart people” don’t try to force their religious minority beliefs on an entire population.
A profile on talking unicorns would be more likely than what you proposed.
Madelyn Beck’s presentation of these glowing reviews by friends and fans is not at all enlightening relative to the court case. So the judge is funny, generous with her time, and a great water skier. Those are all fine qualities, especially if her job was comedian, food bank volunteer or, well, water skier. But she’s a judge. She needs to judge if the law violates the Wyoming constitution, and then she needs to rule fairly, setting aside any personal biases she may have. Can she do it? That remains to be seen. Her decisions so far have certainly leaned toward one side in this case, but maybe she can set aside her personal views when it really counts and put out a fair and well-reasoned decision. We will soon know.
The WILL OF THE PEOPLE is with their Representatives and Senators in the Wyoming Legislature in passing abortion bans as provided in the Wyoming Constitution to protect the life of the unborn. Protecting the life of the unborn is the responsibility of the Wyoming Legislature as required by the Wyoming Constitution. It’s ABSURD that the Wyoming abortion laws are being litigated in the most LIBERAL of Wyoming counties in Teton County that supports abortion up until birth. The plain text of the Wyoming Constitution below allows for bans on abortions to protect the life of the unborn. If the courts don’t uphold the abortion bans in Wyoming, then the Wyoming Legislature should submit a Constitutional Amendment to make abortions illegal in Wyoming, except in cases to save the life of the mother, for rape, or for incest. Healthcare is intended to save life as per the Hippocratic Oath to DO NO HARM. Abortion terminates the life of the unborn human being in the womb and thus violates the Hippocratic Oath to DO NO HARM.
Article 1, Section 38 Right of health care access.
(a) Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions. The parent, guardian or legal representative of any other natural person shall have the right to make health care decisions for that person.
(b) Any person may pay, and a health care provider may accept, direct payment for health care without imposition of penalties or fines for doing so.
(c) The legislature may determine reasonable and necessary restrictions on the rights granted under this section to protect the health and general welfare of the people or to accomplish the other purposes set forth in the Wyoming Constitution.
(d) The state of Wyoming shall act to preserve these rights from undue governmental infringement.
In your rant, you make the point at the heart of this case…..and the one that I believe Judge Owens is weighing as the Rule of Law….. (a) Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions. The parent, guardian or legal representative of any other natural person shall have the right to make health care decisions for that person.
I am a conservative….and a husband and a father to two girls. Today’s GOP and our Freedom Caucus only wants limited government in their rights….but for others (specifically women) they’re all for sticking their noses in where they DO NOT belong. Your pro-life great. But you (nor the the religious right) do not have the right to tell others what is reasonable and necessary in their health care.
Always interesting how the right wingers use activism labels when it goes against what they want. However, activism is exactly what is occurring from the ultra conservative justices . They have used this approach on so many decisions in the past couple of years and it’s not even close to what the left has attempted. Repubs are just better at the politics and smoke and mirrors game.
The unfreedom caucus is a blight in Wyoming. Please vote these people out of office. They want to punish you for not thinking like them. It’s a minority trying to rule the majority. Stand by your Wife, Mother, Sister and Daughter, get rid of the extremists.
Gordan Townsend , Amen!
Wyoming Freedom Caucus functions as the Wyoming Obedience Caucus.
Motto: “You will do exactly as we say.”
Non-conformity shall result in censure, ostracism, ouster.
So what makes this article news? This entire thing is nothing more than a puff piece that describes a judge Ms. Beck likes, as “strong, smart, independent,” and “well suited to Wyoming.” Even better, she is a “badass water skier.” But wait, that’s not all! She is also “uniquely suited for the job,” “down to earth,” and just plain “amazing.” Wow, I thought I was reading an election-year campaign commercial, instead of a news article on WyoFile.
Hey Robert, it’s a “Profile” (see heading); if you only want “news” read heading e.g News | Rocky Mountain Power says its Wyoming customers will pay an extra $54M annually