Gowdy has lots of qualifing experiance.
Gowdy graduated from Spartanburg High School (1982) and earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from Baylor University (1986). While at Baylor, he was a member of Kappa Omega Tau. He received his Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina (1989).
(The Juris Doctor degree (J.D. or JD), also known as the Doctor of Jurisprudence degree (J.D., JD, D.Jur. or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees)
Gowdy clerked for John P. Gardner on the South Carolina Court of Appeals as well as for federal judge George Ross Anderson Jr. of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. He then went into private practice before being appointed an Assistant United States Attorney in April 1994. Gowdy would later be awarded the Postal Inspector's Award for the successful prosecution of J. Mark Allen, one of "America's Most Wanted" suspects.
In February 2000, he left the United States Attorney's Office to run for 7th Circuit Solicitor. He defeated incumbent Solicitor Holman Gossett in the Republican primary. He ran unopposed in the general election. Gowdy was re-elected in 2004 and 2008, both times unopposed. During his tenure, he appeared in four episodes of the television program Forensic Files, as well as Dateline NBC and SCETV. He prosecuted the full set of criminal cases, including seven death penalty cases.