John Code Mowbray

Born in Bradford, Illinois, to Thomas J. and Ellen Driscoll (Code) Mowbray,[1][2] Mowbray received a degree in education from Western Illinois University in 1940, and was a high school teacher from then until 1942, when he enlisted in the United States Army to fight in World War II.[1] He served as an aircraft pilot in the United States Army Air Corps,[2] remaining in the service until 1946, and attaining the rank of major.[1]

After the war, Mowbray received his law degree from the Notre Dame Law School in 1949,[1] where he served as president of the student body,[3] and on the advice of Senator Pat McCarran, moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, to enter the practice of law that year.[1] He worked as deputy in the office of the district attorney for Clark County, Nevada, until 1953, when he entered private practice.[2]

From 1955 to 1959, Mowbray served as a Referee in Bankruptcy,[1] and in 1959, Governor Grant Sawyer named Mowbray to a seat on the Nevada Eighth Judicial District Court, where Mowbray served for twelve years, from 1959 to 1967.[1][2] During this time, Mowbray addressed a substantial backlog in cases and championed legislation to protect abused children and provide public defenders for indigent defendants.[1]

On August 11, 1967, Governor Paul Laxalt appointed Mowbray to a newly established seat on the state supreme court. Mowbray was subsequently reelected four times, and served for several periods as Chief Justice of the court.[1] Towards the end of his career on the state supreme court, Mowbray was troubled by glaucoma slowly causing blindness, and bitterly disputed criticisms from other members of the court asserting a decline in his work.[2][3] Mowbray retired from the bench in January 1993, after twenty-five years on the high court.[1]

Mowbray died in a Las Vegas hospital, where he was being treated for kidney problems, at the age of 78.[2]