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FLORENCE, AZ – After more than 18 years serving on the Pinal County Superior Court bench, Judge Boyd T. Johnson has given notice to the Governor, the Arizona Supreme Court and the Pinal County Board of Supervisors that he is retiring effective June 30, 2013. Judge Johnson has offered to continue to serve Pinal County and the citizens of this State after his retirement as a Judge when and as needed.
Judge Johnson was born and raised in the greater Phoenix area. He attended grade schools in Phoenix and Scottsdale and graduated from Coronado High School in Scottsdale in 1965. Immediately following high school, he served three years active duty and one year reserve duty in the U S Army with tours of duty in Vietnam, Germany and South Korea. Judge Johnson, when separated from active duty, enrolled at ASU and graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Political Science in 1973.
The Judge has been a Pinal County resident since 1976 when he graduated from the ASU College of Law. He was in the private practice of law with the law office of Platt, Jenson and Johnson in Coolidge from 1976 to 1984 during which time he also served as the Coolidge City Prosecutor and for four of those years, in a part-time judicial role, as a Superior Court Juvenile Referee (hearing officer).
In July 1984 Judge Johnson became a senior trial attorney in the Pinal County Attorney’s Office and was appointed in 1986 as the Chief Deputy County Attorney for Pinal County. He served in that office for more than eight years, until November 1992, when he was appointed by the Board of Supervisors to serve as the Pinal County Public Defender.
He remained there until he was selected by a committee of Pinal County citizens and appointed by the Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, in January 1995, to serve as the first full-time Judge Pro Tempore of the Superior Court in Pinal County. In March 1996, Judge Johnson was appointed by the Governor of Arizona as a full-time Superior Court Judge to fill the vacancy left by Judge Robert R. Bean. Judge Johnson was subsequently elected for his first full four year term in November 1996 and has been reelected every 4 years since then.
In 2001 he was appointed as the Associate Presiding Judge and subsequently appointed by the Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court for a three year term, 2006 to 2009, as the Presiding Judge for Pinal County. He currently serves as the Presiding Judge for the Civil and Criminal Bench.
Judge Johnson is, and has been, very involved in many civic, business and historical functions and is a member of several civic, charitable and veterans’ organizations. Judge Johnson and his wife, Kim, have been married since 1968 and have three children and seven grandchildren.
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