Howell Thomas Heflin (June 19, 1921 – March 29, 2005) was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1979 to 1997.

Heflin was born on June 19, 1921, in Poulan, Georgia. His father Marvin Heflin was a Methodist minister, and his mother, Louise Strudwick Heflin, a former teacher. He attended public school in Alabama, graduating from Colbert County High School in Leighton. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1942 from Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, where he became a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. There was a tradition of politics in his family: He was a nephew of James Thomas Heflin, a prominent white supremacist politician and U.S. Senator, and great-nephew of Robert Stell Heflin, a U.S. Representative.

During World War II, from 1942 to 1946, Heflin served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. He was awarded the Silver Star for valor in combat and received two Purple Heart medals, having seen action on Bougainville and Guam.

After World War II, Heflin attended the University of Alabama School of Law, from which he graduated in 1948. For nearly two decades, he served as a law professor, while concurrently practicing law in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

In 1970, Heflin was elected Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, serving from 1971 to 1977.

In 1978, Heflin was elected to the United States Senate to succeed fellow Democrat John Sparkman, who had been Adlai E. Stevenson's running mate in the 1952 presidential election. Heflin won his party's nomination by defeating U.S. Representative Walter Flowers of Tuscaloosa, a long-time George C. Wallace ally. The 1966 Republican gubernatorial nominee, former U.S. Representative James D. Martin of Gadsden, announced that he would challenge Heflin. But Martin switched to a second Senate race for a two-year term created by the sudden death of Senator James B. Allen, leaving Heflin without a Republican opponent.

In March 1981, President Reagan was shot during an assassination attempt by John Hinckley, Jr., outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D. C., Hinckley being brought to trial fourteen months afterward. Heflin espoused the view that the time between the incident and the trial was part of the need for an overhauling of the criminal justice system, "so that it can more efficiently and effectively deal with the rising epidemic of violent crime in this nation", and noted the shootings of Pope John Paul II and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat as incidents that had happened after the Reagan shooting, yet had already seen the assailants be convicted and either jailed or executed. Heflin stated that the delays in bringing defendants to trial formed "contempt for the system", in addition to denouncing the delays as part of the problem, calling for the Senate to form a "Crime Caucus", as part of an attempt to "put aside petty partisan politics and unite in an effort to wage a successful war on crime".

In July 1981, Heflin announced he would introduce legislation calling for the creation of a national court of appeals, and that such legislation would relieve the Supreme Court of some of its present burdens, while increasing the national appellate capacity. The legislation was intended to also initiate a long-range study of the federal court system, and call for major reforms in the American judiciary. Heflin noted that only 289 of the 4,242 petitions for hearings submitted to the Supreme Court in the previous year were granted, and that a national appeals court would resolve feuds in the federal circuit courts.