Henry Howe remembered as dedicated, divisive criminal defense attorney

Jul. 3—GRAND FORKS — Those who knew him say Henry Howe was a man who fought for what he believed in, whether that was speaking out against the Vietnam War or maintaining the berm outside his law office.

Howe, a longtime criminal defense attorney in Grand Forks, died Saturday, June 29, at Altru Hospital. He was 82.

Howe worked for decades in North Dakota's legal system, arguing cases throughout the eastern half of the state, including multiple cases before the state's highest court.

He is remembered as an eclectic and hard-charging lawyer, a man who fought tooth-and-nail for his clients and for what he believed in.

"He was a man of principle, always was," said David Thompson, a Grand Forks attorney who knew Howe professionally and personally for years. "Often at great cost to him personally."

Howe first came to Grand Forks in 1973, shortly after graduating from law school in San Francisco. According to his wife, he picked North Dakota because it was the state that would let him take the bar exam the soonest.

With his two children in tow, Howe rented a room in a house owned by Mary Seaworth, an elementary education teacher who had taught at a laboratory school operated by UND at the time and known as the New School.

Howe was admitted to the state bar in 1973, and started a law practice in Valley City. He and Seaworth were married in 1976, and had two children of their own.

The family moved around the Midwest as Howe bounced between legal clinics before settling back in North Dakota in 1980, where Seaworth enrolled in law school at UND.

"I thought we could have a family business, and we did," said Seaworth, a longtime family lawyer who is now a tribal court judge at Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. "He did his thing, and I did mine."

Howe practiced many kinds of law, but was drawn in particular to criminal justice.

Seaworth said her husband's career as a defense attorney was preordained long before Howe entered law school — specifically, when the then-second lieutenant in the Army Reserve was court-martialed in 1965 for attending an anti-war protest in El Paso.

According to an article published in the Tulsa Law Review in 2019, military intelligence officers recognized Howe, in civilian clothes and holding a cardboard sign reading, "End Johnson's facist agression (sic) in Vietnam," and had civilian police arrest him for vagrancy.

Howe was imprisoned for a year for using "contemptuous words" against then-President Lyndon Johnson, a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a case that attracted considerable attention at the time from civil liberties advocates.

He told the Army Times in 2006 that, given the chance to do it again, he would spell "fascist" correctly.

"He was somebody who did what he thought was right and didn't seem to care what people thought," said Seaworth.

Howe's persistence paid off in his legal career. The Tulsa Law Review notes he gained a reputation as a tough litigator, and Seaworth said Howe believed in his client's innocence up until a plea deal or a guilty verdict.

"He was a pain in the (rear end) to prosecute," Thompson said. "He wouldn't deal a case out if he thought there was a solid defense and his client wanted to go to trial."

Thompson said Howe would fight his clients' criminal charges and then take on civil cases on their behalf to reclaim assets seized by the police.

Across the span of his legal career, Howe argued multiple cases before the North Dakota Supreme Court and notched several significant victories, most notably a 2003 class-action suit against Microsoft for alleged antitrust violations that led the tech giant to settle for millions, most of which went to local schools.

He also racked up what one legal scholar called an "impressive" record of disciplinary actions and was temporarily suspended from practicing law multiple times, according to the Tulsa Law Review.

Later in life, he engaged in extended, public legal battles with the city of Grand Forks over delinquent taxes and the unkempt berm outside his and Seaworth's legal office on DeMers Avenue and Fifth Street, at what is now Harry's Steakhouse.

"It's really hard to explain him," Seaworth said in regards to Howe's fight with the city over the unkempt berm.

"They were wildflowers, but there were also weeds. And they were annoying flowers because they acted like dandelions. But he really liked them and didn't think they were hurting anyone, so why weren't they okay?"

In 2014, nearly 50 years after his first arrest, the 72-year-old Howe was arrested and charged with conspiring to kill a witness set to testify against one of his clients in a case being tried in Walsh County.

Thompson said Howe was actually in the courtroom at the Walsh County Courthouse when he was arrested.

The case against Howe collapsed after it was revealed the prosecution's witness had a lengthy criminal history that included lying to police and fabricating several bogus murder-for-hire plots.

Six years later, Howe and Thompson filed a $6 million lawsuit against the former prosecutor, a sheriff's deputy and two Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents involved in the 2016 case, accusing them of fabricating evidence and giving false testimony.

That case went all the way to the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ultimately ruled against Howe.

Thompson called the circuit court's verdict "poorly decided."

Outside of the courtroom, Seaworth said Howe was an avid cyclist and a fan of Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. He and Seaworth were involved for years in local Democratic Party politics, until Seaworth became a judge.

He and Seaworth were grandparents to seven grandchildren; he would tell his kids and grandkids if they ever got in trouble to stay quiet and call their lawyer.

"The kids thought he was a superhero, that he could do anything," Seaworth said.

Toward the end of his life, Seaworth said Howe began showing signs of dementia and struggled to reason and communicate with others, to his frustration.

He always remembered he was a lawyer, though.

A service for Howe will be held at Holy Family Catholic Church in Grand Forks on July 13, at 10:30 a.m.