Joel David Horton (born October 30, 1959) is an American lawyer and retired judge from

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

. He is a former justice of the

Idaho Supreme Court The Idaho Supreme Court is the state supreme court of Idaho and is composed of the chief justice and four associate justices. The decisions of the Idaho Supreme Court are binding on all other Idaho state courts. The only court that may reverse ...

, appointed

Early life and education

Born in

Nampa, Idaho Nampa () is the largest city in Canyon County, Idaho. Its population was 100,200 at the time of the 2020 Census. It is Idaho's third-most populous city. Nampa is about west of Boise along Interstate 84, and six miles (10 km) west of Meridian. ...

, Horton lived in Lewiston as a youth and later in

Boise Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown area's ...

; he graduated from

Borah High School Borah High School is a three-year public secondary school in Boise, Idaho, one of four traditional high schools in the Boise School District. It serves students in grades in the southwest portion of the district. It is named after a prominent ...

in Boise in 1977. He attended the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and received a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in political science in 1982. Horton then attended the

University of Idaho The University of Idaho (U of I, or UIdaho) is a public land-grant research university in Moscow, Idaho. It is the state's land-grant and primary research university,, and the lead university in the Idaho Space Grant Consortium. The University ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

and received his J.D. from its

College of Law A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...

Career

A district judge in Boise, Horton was appointed to the state's highest court by Governor

Butch Otter Clement Leroy "Butch" Otter (born May 3, 1942) is an American businessman and politician who served as the 32nd governor of Idaho from 2007 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected in 2006, and reelected in 2010, and 2014. Otter ...

in September 2007 to fill the vacancy of the retiring

Linda Copple Trout Linda Jayne Copple Trout (born September 1, 1951) is an American lawyer and retired judge from Idaho. She is a former chief justice of the Idaho Supreme Court, the only female to hold that position. Appointed by Governor Cecil Andrus as an assoc ...

. He narrowly retained his seat in the statewide election (50.1%) in but was re-elected by a wide margin (65.8%) six years later In June 2018, Horton announced he would retire at the end of December. His successor, Gregory Moeller, was appointed by Otter and was unopposed in the 2020 election.

References

External links

Idaho Supreme Court
– Joel Horton
Vote Smart
– Joel Horton 1959 births Living people Justices of the Idaho Supreme Court Lawyers from Boise, Idaho People from Nampa, Idaho University of Idaho alumni University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni 21st-century American judges University of Idaho College of Law alumni {{US-state-judge-stub