Pasco M. Bowman II is a Senior Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. A former Fulbright scholar, he received a B.A. in English from Bridgewater College and J.D. from New York University School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden scholar and served as managing editor of the law review.
Bowman was a member of the faculty of University of Georgia School of Law from 1964 to 1970. He was then dean and professor at Wake Forest University School of Law from 1970 to 1978, and a visiting professor at the University of Virginia School of Law from 1978 to 1979. He was dean and professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law from July 1979 to July 1983. During this entire period he was also a U.S. Army Reserve Colonel in the Judge Advocate General's Corps from 1959 to 1984.
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan nominated and the Senate confirmed Bowman to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He served as Chief Judge from 1998 to 1999. He took senior status in 2003. His service to the federal judiciary includes tours of duty on the Criminal Law Committee, the Federal-State Jurisdiction Committee, and the Board of Directors of the Federal Judicial Center. Notably, Bowman authored the Eighth Circuit's opinion in Clinton v. Jones that held the Constitution does not protect the President from federal civil litigation involving actions committed before entering office. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment 9-0.
