Leonard McEwan

Who was Leonard McEwan?

Leonard A. McEwan was an American jurist who was a member of both the Wyoming Supreme Court, which meets in the capital city of Cheyenne, and the Fourth Judicial District Court, which convenes in Sheridan and serves Sheridan and Johnson counties. Though a Democrat, McEvan was elected on a nonpartisan judicial ballot in 1968, a heavily Republican year in Wyoming. He unseated an aging incumbent justice. McEwan was first justice and then chief justice until 1974, when he stepped down to return to become a judge of the Sheridan-based district court in northern Wyoming. McEwan remained a district judge until his retirement in 1985. He preferred to live in Sheridan and enjoyed the diverse duties of a district judge in contrast to the academic thinking of a Supreme Court jurist. After he left the bench, he resumed his private law practice in Sheridan for a number of years.

McEwan was born to Leonard McEwan and the late Olga McEwan in Great Falls, Montana, a city on the Missouri River. He grew up in Great Falls but moved to Sheridan in 1939 and graduated from Sheridan High School in 1943.