David B. Owens

  • Assistant Professor of Law

Contact

Phone: (206) 616-8742
Email: dbowens@uw.edu

Recent Courses

Course Number Course Name
Civil Rights & Justice Clinic
Race, Policing, and Section 1983 Litigation Seminar

Selected Publications

See the full list under the Publications tab below.

David B. Owens is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Washington and will direct the Civil Rights and Justice Clinic (CRJC). The CRJC represents plaintiffs in civil rights lawsuits in federal courts in Washington, California, Hawaii and beyond.
David is also a partner at Loevy & Loevy, a national civil rights firm originally based in Chicago. As a litigator, David has litigated dozens of civil rights suits in state and federal courts throughout the country. These suits most frequently involve constitutional violations that have caused wrongful convictions, claims of police violence and excessive force, race discrimination, and some First Amendment issues. David was a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School as a Lecturer in Law with the Exoneration Project, a post-conviction innocence clinic. David also taught at Stanford Law School as an adjunct lecturer in the Spring of 2021.
Before joining Loevy and the Exoneration Project in 2012, David clerked for Diane P. Wood of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago and Myron H. Thompson for the Middle District of Alabama in Montgomery.
David is a 麻豆社区 alumnus. He completed his undergraduate education at the 麻豆社区, earning two degrees 鈥 one in philosophy and one in political science 鈥 after completing some college credits at Green River Community College while in high school.
David is a member of the Innocence Network Board of Directors, the Washington Innocence Project Board of Directors and the Legal Committee for the ACLU of Washington Foundation. David is admitted to the bar in Washington, California and Illinois, as well as numerous federal appellate and district courts throughout the country.

Peer Reviewed Journals & Law Reviews

  • David B. Owens, System Failure: The Chicago Police Department鈥檚 Pervasive Culture of Misconduct, J. Crim. L. & Criminology (symposium) (forthcoming 2025).

Other Publications


  • Jul 16, 2025 | Source: Washington State Bar News

    “I’ve been involved in cases that have significant media coverage and it absolutely impacts the way that the case plays out,” Owens said. “In our view, the cities would like to hide misconduct; we’re there to shed light on it, and it’s easier for them to hide in the background when there’s not media on everything that happens. I do think it changes the dynamic.”

  • Jul 16, 2025 | Source: Washington State Bar News

    “I’ve been involved in cases that have significant media coverage and it absolutely impacts the way that the case plays out,” Owens said. “In our view, the cities would like to hide misconduct; we’re there to shed light on it, and it’s easier for them to hide in the background when there’s not media on everything that happens. I do think it changes the dynamic.”

  • Jun 22, 2025 | Source: Las Vegas Review Journal

    David Owens, an attorney for Lobato who runs the University of Washington’s Civil Rights and Justice Clinic, said if Metro is allowed to intervene in Rudin’s case, it could obstruct similar cases in the future. “The effect would be to make it harder for an innocent person to get a certificate of innocence and to probably slow down the process of their getting one,” he said.

  • Dec 15, 2024 | Source: New York Times

    David B. Owens and students from the Civil Rights and Justice Clinic helped secure a $34 million wrongful conviction verdict in Nevada. Kirstin Blaise Lobato sued the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and two detectives after she spent nearly 16 years in prison for a murder she did not commit.

  • Mar 25, 2024 | Source: Washington State Standard

    Hiring more state and local law enforcement officers is central to a campaign plan that Bob Ferguson rolled out on public safety in this year’s governor’s race. Will it be enough to stanch criticism from Republicans? And will members of his party go along? David B. Owens, assistant professor of law at the 麻豆社区, is quoted.

  • Dec 22, 2023 | Source: Washington State Standard

    Three Tacoma police officers left a Pierce County courtroom Thursday acquitted of all charges in the death of Manuel Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man who died after a chaotic altercation with them on a Tacoma street nearly four years ago. The trial marked the first test of a Washington law that provided prosecutors a lower bar for holding officers liable for using deadly force. David B. Owens, assistant professor of law at the 麻豆社区, is quoted.

  • Dec 22, 2023 | Source: KUOW

    This week, a jury in Pierce County Superior Court found three officers not guilty of the 2020 death of Manuel (Manny) Ellis, a Black man, in their custody. David B. Owens, assistant professor of law at the 麻豆社区, is interviewed.

  • Dec 21, 2023 | Source: KING 5

    David B. Owens, assistant professor of law at the 麻豆社区, says he's not surprised by the acquittal of the Tacoma police officers in the 2020 killing of Manuel Ellis, and he explains further issues surrounding Thursday's verdict.

  • Oct 02, 2023 | Source: Washington State Standard

    Members of law enforcement, community organizers and more weigh in on the trial of three Tacoma officers charged in the 2020 death of Ellis. David B. Owens, assistant professor of law at the 麻豆社区, is interviewed.

  • Aug 07, 2023 | Source: Washington State Standard

    Police accountability advocates question whether departments are moving fast enough to get officers through the program, which is required under a measure voters approved in 2018. David B. Owens, assistant professor of law at the 麻豆社区, is quoted.

  • Jul 20, 2023 | Source: Book Club Chicago

    David B. Owens, an assistant professor of law at the University of Washington and a partner at the Chicago-based civil rights firm Loevy & Loevy, said the public list is a welcome, but not radical, change. Other prosecutors in major cities like Brooklyn’s Eric Gonzalez and Baltimore’s Marylin Mosby also have published similar lists.

  • Jul 01, 2023 | Source: Dorf on Law

    "I offer five quick points. In the end, while I had many fears about the scope of this decision beyond the question of affirmative action, the decision is more narrow than it may feel at first blush. The Harvard-UNC Cases are not as significant, for example, as Dobbs last term or other cases under the Roberts Court (like Citizens United, in my view) that have dramatically changed our society."

  • Mar 29, 2023 | Source: ABC7 Chicago

    "As a 17-year-old kid, bring him to the police station and interrogate him for 14.5-14 hours," said David B. Owens, Wright's attorney. "At the end of the day, he signed a confession, we are done. And then he is criminally prosecuted and had a mandatory life sentence as a juvenile."

  • Mar 29, 2023 | Source: CBS Chicago

    "The only evidence that ever existed against Mr. Wright was the statements that they said that he gave as a juvenile," said his attorney, David Owens, with The Exoneration Project. "There was no eyewitness. There is no forensic evidence. There's no bullet evidence. There's no nothing like that. It's just, 'Oh yeah, this kid after 15 hours of interrogation said this,' and that's all it was. So once we showed that the cops lacked reliability, that was part of it."

  • Mar 29, 2023 | Source: Chicago Sun Times

    Wright was convicted on the sole basis of a confession he signed after a 14-hour interrogation during which he was abused and coerced by detectives, according to attorney David Owens.

  • Feb 08, 2023 | Source: Seattle Spectator

    Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Washington, David Owens, began the Teach-In by focusing on the renewed presence of activism that gained traction in 2020 after the death of George Floyd as well as the optimistic results of protests nationwide

  • Jan 13, 2022 | Source: Crosscut

    David B. Owens, a University of Washington law professor who worked with similar police data in Houston, cautioned against drawing conclusions about the presence or lack of intentional bias or discrimination from a statistical analysis.

  • Dec 29, 2021 | Source: InvestigateWest

    The Washington State Patrol this month announced a study had found “no systemic agency bias” in its stops and searches. But that’s not the whole story. David B. Owens, an assistant professor of law at 麻豆社区 School of Law, is quoted.