Judge, Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, Phoenix, Arizona, since 2012, and Chief Judge 2017-2019. Sam is a member of the National Judicial College Board of Trustees; is a Uniform Law Commissioner, where he serves as Secretary and on the Executive Committee and is an ABA Presidential appointee to the Advisory Council of the ABA Task Force on Law and Artificial Intelligence and the Standing Committee on Lawyer Referral and Information Services. He is a member of the Joint Technology Committee, appointed by the National Center for State Courts, and is an Advisor to the American Law Institute’s RESTATEMENT OF LAW (THIRD) OF TORTS: REMEDIES project. Sam chairs Arizona’s Commission on Access to Justice, having previously chaired various Committees, Commissions and Task Forces for the Arizona Supreme Court and the State Bar of Arizona. In 2023, he received the James A. Walsh Outstanding Jurist Award from the State Bar of Arizona and, in 2021, he was named the Judge of the Year by the Arizona Supreme Court. Sam co-teaches evidence at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. He has presented at more than 500 law-related programs in more than 20 states and published 18 law review articles, six book chapters and nearly 70 other law-related articles. Sam served as a Judge on the Maricopa County Superior Court for five years; a partner at Perkins Coie Brown & Bain, P.A., Phoenix, and an associate at Arnold & Porter, Washington, D.C. He clerked for Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Stanley G. Feldman and Federal Judge David R. Hansen, Northern District of Iowa. Sam received a Master of Laws, Duke University School of Law (2020); J.D., Order of the Coif, University of Iowa College of Law (1988), and B.S., Iowa State University (1984), where he was a Truman Scholar.

was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals on February 9, 2013. At the time of his appointment, he was an Assistant Arizona Attorney General, serving as Solicitor General, overseeing criminal appeals, capital litigation, and civil appeals.

Kent earned his J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986, and he worked in private practice for 5 years before joining the Attorney General's Office in 1991. For the next 22 years, he represented the State of Arizona in state and federal court, briefing over 200 appellate cases, and arguing more than 95 cases in the Arizona Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.

Kent provided testimony to the United States Senate and House of Representatives regarding federal habeas and death penalty issues, and he helped draft legislation and worked with the Arizona legislature in addressing a variety of criminal law issues. He also led the Attorney General's efforts to study lessons learned from DNA exonerations.

Kent is currently serving as Vice Chief of Division One of the Arizona Court of Appeals. He is also the Vice-Chair of Arizona's Forensic Science Advisory Committee, and he serves as a member of a federal organization (Organization of Scientific Area Committees) charged with promulgating standards for the various forensic science disciplines.

, a former political reporter, graduated from Stanford Law School in 1982. She clerked for Judge Ben Duniway on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, then worked for two years at Munger Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles before joining the Phoenix law firm then known as Martori, Meyer, Hendricks & Victor. She practiced commercial litigation at that firm and its successor, Osborn Maledon, until Governor Napolitano appointed her to the Arizona Court of Appeals in 2006. She was that court's Chief Judge in 2013-16, and in 2017 earned a masters of judicial studies from Duke Law School. Her thesis is "Building a Bench: A Close Look at State Appellate Courts Constructed by the Respective Methods of Judicial Selection," 53 San Diego L. Rev. 829 (2016). Judge Johnsen is a member of the American Law Institute. In 2020, she received the State Bar’s James A. Walsh Outstanding Jurist Award and was named the Arizona Judicial Branch’s Judge of the Year. She now is a senior counsel specializing in appellate law at Perkins Coie.

CHIEF JUDGE DAVID BRUCE GASS grew up in central Pennsylvania but spent a year taking classes in Chihuahua, Mexico. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Ruth V. McGregor before joining the Phoenix law firm of Lewis and Roca, LLP. He spent seven sessions working as Counsel at the Arizona House of Representatives, before going to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.

In 2009, Judge Gass was appointed to the Superior Court in Maricopa County. He served on all four major assignments. He sat on the Arizona Bar Association’s Civil Jury Instruction Committee and served as President of the Arizona Judges’ Association. He and Judge Pamela Svoboda established the STRENGTH Court in Maricopa County. STRENGTH Court works with victims of sex trafficking who are in the juvenile justice system.

In 2019, Judge Gass was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One. He began serving as the Vice Chief Judge effective July 2021 and began his term as Chief Judge effective July 2023. He is a member of the Arizona Judicial Council and the Arizona Supreme Court Commission on Diversity, Equality, and Justice. He chaired the 2022 Child Support Guidelines Review Subcommittee.

Judge Gass was awarded the 2005 Arizona State University College of Law Alumni Association recognition for outstanding service, the 2014 Michael D. Ryan Award for Judicial Excellence from the State Bar of Arizona Public Lawyers Section, the 2018 Pete Dunn Above and Beyond Award as outstanding ambassador of the Judges in Arizona, and the 2018 Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law Judicial Officer of the Year. The State Bar of Arizona awarded him its 2020 Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Award. In 2021, the Arizona Supreme Court’s Committee on Judicial Education and Training awarded him the Excellence in Education Award.

Judge Gass is on the Arizona Town Hall Training Committee and has worked with Arizona Anytown Youth Leadership.

Judge Gass is a member of the LGBTQ+ community. He focuses and speaks on diversity and inclusion issues. He has been active in many related projects. Several are listed here. He developed a training module to unpack and demystify the judicial application process to encourage diversity in Arizona’s courts. He also developed an undergraduate internship program at the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One to give diverse undergraduate students experience working in the courts and to encourage them to go to law school.

Most notable, Judge Gass felt strongly that Arizona should officially recognize the Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution so that we never forget the wrongs done to persons of Japanese descent and their families. He spent five years making it a reality so we always remember our constitution and our civil liberties are fragile and require our constant attention.

And he saves stray dogs on the side.

was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, by Governor Doug Ducey in 2016. Previously, Judge McMurdie spent eleven years on the Maricopa County Superior Court having been appointed to the superior court bench by Governor Janet Napolitano in 2005. While serving as a superior court judge, Judge McMurdie presided over civil, criminal, and family cases. Prior to being appointed to the Court of Appeals, Judge McMurdie was the Presiding Family Court Judge.
Judge McMurdie graduated with a B.A. degree in Political Science from Utah State University in 1982. He received his J.D. from Arizona State University in 1985. While in law school, he was selected for the Truman Young Fellowship as the outstanding criminal law student.
After graduating from ASU, Judge McMurdie worked for the Arizona Attorney General's Office in the Criminal Appeals Section. In 1991, he was appointed as the Section Chief for Criminal Appeals. In 2001, Judge McMurdie began working for the Maricopa Attorney's Office as the Division Chief for Appeals and Research.
As a lawyer for the Arizona Attorney General's Office and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, Judge McMurdie received the following awards: Arizona Prosecuting Attorney's Advisory Council's Lifetime Achievement Award (2004); Maricopa County Attorney's Office Division Attorney of the Year Award (2005 and 2003); Arizona Attorney Generals' Criminal Division Attorney of the Year Award (1991); Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys' Advisory Council Prosecutor of the Year Award (1990), Association of Government Attorneys in Capital Litigation Board of Director's Award (2005); and United States Department of Labor Special Recognition Award (1990).
Judge McMurdie served in the following capacity as a lawyer: Family Law Executive Counsel for the State Bar (2015 to 2016); Chair, State Bar Criminal Jury Instructions Committee; Secretary-Treasurer Association of Government Attorneys in Capital Litigation; Co-Chair Joint Legislative/Judicial Study Committee on Post-Conviction Relief; Co-Chair Arizona Supreme Court committee on Reducing Appellate Delay; and the Ninth Circuit Task Force on Capital Cases.

was appointed to the Court of Appeals in April 2020. From 2010 until her appointment, Judge Bailey served on the Maricopa County Superior Court, presiding over cases in the criminal, family, and civil divisions. As a practicing lawyer, in addition to a broad private practice, Judge Bailey worked in both the executive and legislative branches of government. She served as the Rules Attorney for the Arizona State Senate, worked as a criminal prosecutor in Maricopa County, and as a lawyer representing Maricopa County in the mental health court. Judge Bailey received her B.S. and J.D. from Arizona State University.

was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals by Governor Katie Hobbs on February 21, 2023. He studied history at the University of Illinois, and graduated Harvard Law School magna cum laude in 1992, where he was a research assistant to Professor Laurence Tribe. He was a partner at Jenner & Block in Chicago and Snell & Wilmer in Tucson and Phoenix, and led Snell’s appellate practice for thirteen years. The Arizona Supreme Court has appointed Andrew to six bodies: Judicial Performance Review, the Task Force on the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure, the Committee for Civil Justice Reform, the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, the Task Force on Jury Data Collection, Practices, and Procedures, and the Task Force on the Rules of Procedure for Special Actions. Andrew has served on the Arizona State Bar’s Civil Practice and Procedure Committee for fifteen years and was its Chair from 2014-18. He served in the Arizona State Bar Batson Working Group. Andrew was a principal initial drafter of Ariz. R. Civ. P. 26.2 (tiering) and has contributed to many more court rules. He served in the Ninth Circuit’s Advisory Committee on Rules and Civil Practice. He co-founded the District of Arizona’s pro bono program in 2006 and coordinated it for five years. He was the lawyer coordinator for the Ninth Circuit’s pro bono program from 2007-23 for Arizona and Nevada, and for the Arizona Court of Appeals for Division Two from 2014-23. He placed over 220 pro bono cases in these roles. Andrew was admitted to practice in Illinois, Arizona, and Nevada, joining their bars, the ABA, and the Arizona LGBT Bar, as a member of that community. He is also a member of AWLA, Los Abogados, and AAABA, and mentors in the Latina Mentoring Project. He re-founded the Arizona Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society and was its President for many years. Andrew argued sixty civil appeals among three federal circuits and six states. He took two cases to the U.S. Supreme Court as counsel of record. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, a Member of the American Law Institute, a co-editor of the Arizona Appellate Handbook, and was an Arizona State Bar Member of the Year in 2016.

has served in the Staff Attorney Office of the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, for nearly a decade. He was recently selected to serve as Chief Staff Attorney. Before that, he was the office’s Civil Group Lead and prepared draft decisions and opinions in civil cases. Before joining the court, he spent twelve years in private practice litigating a broad variety of civil matters. He also has multiple seasons under his belt as a youth baseball coach. He earned his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and a B.S. in journalism magna cum laude from Ohio University.

Judge Anni Hill Foster is a distinguished jurist serving as a Judge in Division One of the Arizona Court of Appeals. With a reputation for fairness, integrity, and a commitment to the rule of law, Judge Foster has made significant contributions to the legal field. Originally from Maryland, Judge Foster developed a passion for the law through work at a youth center in Baltimore. She pursued her academic endeavors with determination and graduated from Mary Baldwin University with a degree in Political Science and Economics and then became the first in her family to attend law school at Gonzaga University School of Law where she focused on public interest law. Following her first semester, she was selected for a highly coveted clerkship with the Washington Attorney General’s Office in civil litigation, employment and education law. After completing her legal education, Judge Foster moved to Arizona and embarked on a career in public service. She gained invaluable experience working at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, where she represented the state in family law and public safety matters including immigration, racial profiling, criminal law and administrative law. Judge Foster's commitment to public service and her tireless work ethic led her to serve as in-house counsel with the Arizona Department of Public Safety and General Counsel to Arizona’s 23rd Governor, Doug Ducey, where she handled a diverse range of legal matters, drafted legislation, negotiated an historic gaming compact for the state and handled civil litigation for the Governor. Recognized for her legal acumen, expertise and leadership in state government, Judge Foster was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in December 2022. In this role, she presides over appeals cases from across the state, applying her deep understanding of the law to render fair and impartial decisions. Judge Foster's contributions to the legal field extend beyond her work on the bench. She is actively involved in legal organizations and community initiatives aimed at promoting access to justice, upholding the rule of law and educating our community about the role of the judiciary. She also dedicates her time to mentoring young lawyers and law students.

was appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2022. From 2020 to 2023, Judge Catlett worked at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office as Deputy Solicitor General and Chief Counsel of Special Litigation, representing the State of Arizona and the Arizona Attorney General in trial and appellate courts. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Judge Catlett was a complex commercial and appellate litigator in private practice with the law firms of Quarles & Brady LLP (Associate 2010-2014, Partner 2014-2020) and Osborn Maledon, P.A. (Associate 2007-2010). After graduating from law school, Judge Catlett served a one-year clerkship (2006-2007) with the Hon. Paul J. Kelly, Jr., United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Judge Catlett received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in finance from Arizona State University. Judge Catlett received his law degree summa cum laude and order of the coif from the University of Arizona College of Law, where he was Editor-In-Chief of the Arizona Law Review. Judge Catlett has been a member of the Arizona State Bar’s Civil Practice and Procedure Committee, is an author of a chapter in the Arizona Attorneys’ Fee Manual, and has been a professor of practice at the University of Arizona College of Law, co-teaching a course on Government Liability.

was appointed as a judge of the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, by Gov. Doug Ducey effective January 25, 2021. Prior to his appointment to the bench, Judge Furuya served as a deputy county attorney for Coconino County, in the office's civil division from 2016. In his government practice, Judge Furuya handled a wide variety of matters, including tax valuation appeals, code enforcement matters, general civil litigation, and providing legal advice and representation to local fire districts, as well as many county officers, commissions, and boards. From 2007 through 2015, he was in private practice, where he handled cases in the areas of real estate and business transactions, landlord-tenant, appellate, personal injury, and corporate and employment law, as well as civil litigation with the law firm of Aspey, Watkins & Diesel, P.L.L.C. Judge Furuya was named as a Rising Star by Super Lawyers in 2015 and again in 2016.

Residing with his family in Flagstaff, Judge Furuya is active in the community. In addition to volunteering for community focus groups for the City of Flagstaff, he has served as President of the Board of Directors for the Coconino County Bar Association, and was also selected as a member of the Flagstaff Leadership Program's class of 2013. From 2014 through 2021, he served as a member of the State Bar of Arizona's Board of Governors for District 1, representing Apache, Navajo, Coconino, and Mohave counties. He also filled a term as president of the State Bar of Arizona from 2019 to 2020. He continues his volunteer service to the legal community as a member of the Board of Directors for the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services and Education.

Judge Furuya graduated with a degree, cum laude, from Brigham Young University in 2003, studying political science and philosophy. He attended the J. Reuben Clark Law School and was awarded a juris doctor degree in 2007. In law school, Judge Furuya was Managing Editor of Articles for the Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law. He also was an adjunct professor of law with the J. Reuben Clark Law School, teaching legal interviewing & counseling theory and technique until 2010. In addition to obtaining law licenses for all State and Federal courts in Arizona and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Furuya was also admitted to practice before the courts of the Navajo Nation in 2008, where he took pro bono cases to serve indigent members of the tribe.

began service on the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, in November 2021. She served as a judicial law clerk to Arizona Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Irvine and spent most of her legal career at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office (AGO), serving as Special Assistant Attorney General, Assistant Solicitor General, and Assistant Attorney General. In these roles, Judge Paton represented the State of Arizona in appellate matters before the state’s highest courts, oversaw the drafting of Attorney General opinions for statewide distribution, served as the office’s Ethics Counsel, and provided legal counsel and policy advice to all six AGO divisions.

Judge Paton also spent approximately five years as the advisor to Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bob Burns providing analysis and counsel on complex utility regulation and constitutional law matters. She has consistently given back to the legal and local communities through her work on the Arizona Supreme Court Committee on Character and Fitness from 2016-2021 and on numerous nonprofit boards and committees.

Judge Paton received her law degree from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University where she was a member of the Arizona State Law Journal and President of the Women Law Students Association. She received a B.A. in History summa cum laude from the University of Arizona.