Humetewa has served as counsel to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and to the Deputy Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice, as a member of the United States Sentencing Guideline Commission, Native American Advisory Committee, and as an Appellate Court Judge for the Hopi Tribe, of which she is an enrolled member.

[7] She earned an associate degree from Phoenix College in 1985, then graduated from Arizona State University in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science.

During that period, Knauss and Humetewa continued to pursue the criminal investigation of Congressman Rick Renzi (R-AZ), begun by Charlton in September 2006.

From 2002 to 2007, she served as a judge pro tem on the Hopi Tribal Appellate Court, and as an ad hoc member of the Native American Subcommittee of the United States Sentencing Commission.

[9] Humetewa resigned effective August 2, 2009, when President Barack Obama nominated Dennis K. Burke as the next United States attorney for the District of Arizona.

[15][16] Humetewa was one of four Arizona judicial nominees announced by Obama that day who were chosen in consultation with Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake.

[12] Following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, Humetewa was mentioned as a possible consensus nominee for a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court, considered able to make it through the Republican-controlled Senate.